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2008 The Eight of Swords Sandra L. Giles

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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE EIGHT OF SWORDS

By

SANDRA L. GILES

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2008 The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Sandra L. Giles on 6 February 2008.

______Virgil Suarez Professor Directing Dissertation

______Susan Nelson Wood Outside Committee Member

______R. M. Berry Committee Member

______Deborah Coxwell-Teague Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Deep and sincere thanks go to my committee members: Virgil Suarez, R.M. Berry, Deborah Coxwell-Teague, Susan Nelson Wood. Thanks also go to the members of Mark Winegardner’s Fiction Writing Workshop in Fall of 2002, in which this novel began as a short story and received thoughtful critique. I received valuable advice and information from Mavis LaBounty, Sissy Taylor-Maloy, and other members of the “Goddess Group” in Tallahassee, Florida, as well as from Officer Tom King of the Tifton Police Department, the Tiftarea Writers Haven writing group, and my sister, Debra King, former mobile home salesperson among other specialties. And of course, special thanks to my family, friends, and colleagues for support and encouragement in this endeavor.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...... v THE TOWER...... 1 1...... 1 2...... 7 3...... 28 4...... 49 THE EIGHT OF CUPS ...... 56 5...... 56 6...... 68 7...... 80 8...... 89 THE DEVIL...... 97 9...... 97 10...... 108 11...... 124 12...... 135 13...... 144 THE EMPRESS ...... 151 14...... 151 15...... 158 16...... 167 THE WORLD ...... 175 17...... 175 18...... 182 19...... 192 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 207

iv ABSTRACT

In The Eight of Swords, a novel, Meredith Sutton finds herself a single mother with no job and no place to live after her husband pleads guilty to several types of theft, leaving her to return to the bank their mobile home and the land on which it rests. Her mother-in- law is Sister Pearl, a well known tarot card reader and psychic in the town, generally regarded as “The Dragon Lady.” Nevertheless, Sister Pearl takes in Meredith and her four-year-old son. Meredith’s old friendships from high school have fallen apart, but she makes new friends when she finds a job in a beauty salon. Sister Pearl then decides to quit her psychic counseling business, leaving the town bereft of her services. Meredith overcomes her superstitious fear of the cards and, in search of answers to her own questions, learns to read them herself, eventually taking over her mother-in-law’s former business, housing it in the back room of the salon rather than in Pearl’s old office in the enclosed garage of her home. Meredith soon grows uncomfortable in her new role as advisor and uncomfortable with the pressure her clients put on her to be psychic rather than just interpret the cards they draw. Predictable community criticism and a bit of backlash occur. Meanwhile, Sister Pearl seems to regain her powers and begins to resume some degree of involvement in counseling again. Meredith begins to consider more solid options for her future through education and technical training. She reconciles with her husband when he finally can admit to her what he had done and attempt to explain why.

v THE TOWER

Chapter 1

What I’ve learned from reading the cards is, people don’t see the signs that are right in front of their faces. I’m talking about things out in the world, happening right there in their lives. And then you get the hindsight effect: “why didn’t I see it coming?” et cetera. Well, you would have seen it coming, if you had been looking. But the truth is, you don’t really want to. Not when you think you’ve got it all. A handsome businessman husband, a bright four-year-old boy with his father’s blonde hair and blue eyes, a seventeen-hundred-square foot manufactured home, tied down and with the wheels and axles removed of course, sitting on our own two acres outside the city limits surrounded on all sides by trees and farms with just one small two-lane state road way in front. No neighbors close enough to wave to. It was quiet. It was home. It was the goddamn American Dream. We’d gone up to Wayne Friedman Homes just to see what they had on the lot, to see if we could afford anything. We were about to be married with a bun already in the oven. Andy’s mother wanted us to live with her for a while to save money so we could buy a house. Andy said no, that we were going to start our own family, on our own. His mother, a professional psychic, had pressed her lips together. I was terrified of the cards in those days and wouldn’t have asked her for a reading to save my life. I didn’t want us to live with her to save my life, either. “Here are the floor plans, Mrs. Sutton,” the salesman said, spreading the glossy brochures out on his desk. It took me a minute to realize he was talking to me. I wasn’t used to that name, and it wasn’t quite rightfully mine yet. His window air conditioner roared chilliness and stale cigarette fumes in our faces. Andy looked at me instead of the floor plans. “What do you think?” His eyes gleamed, and already in those days I knew that look. I knew he wanted this. I was just relieved to see him so happy about it.

1 I studied the plans while Andy and the salesman rattled off figures and prequalifying amounts and discussed what they could “swing.” I shuffled through the floor plans several times. It was hard for me to get a feel from a drawing and a few staged photos. Not a single one of them seemed like my mother’s trailer, a single-wide wind- tunnel type, which was good. I didn’t want that. I wanted it to feel like a real house. And be pretty, like something on the Home and Garden channel. “Okay,” the salesman said, standing and hiking up his khakis. “I know what you need, little lady. You need to see some from the inside, don’t you?” I looked at Andy. I didn’t want to look at anything if we couldn’t afford it. “It’s okay,” he said and patted my knee. When he stood up his chest was big and his shoulders back, like he already owned the whole place. This was going to happen fast. “Don’t you worry, now, we’ll get it all figured out,” the salesman said over his shoulder as he led us back out into the bright sunshine. “Y’all come on out.” We followed him to the display models. I think there was a pattern to what he did. The first two he showed us had awkward, jumbled floor plans. The third was better, but decorated in a very masculine way—all hard blues and greens and cranberries. Plus, it included a ten-by-ten covered porch, which I thought was cute. But the salesman said, “You’re just paying for empty space. You don’t want to do that,” looking back across the lot as if making sure old Wayne himself couldn’t hear, as if to say, Trust me. I won’t do you wrong. The fourth home, then, was much better. And that did it. The man even left us alone to go through it, hanging back in the front doorway like it was already ours and we hadn’t given him permission to enter. It was so clean, so well decorated and homey. The floor plan was open, the kitchen and dining nook and family room flowing gracefully from one to the next. Light filtered in through big windows and two skylights over the dining room and kitchen. Cherry wood cabinets and a large center island. And in the master suite, vaulted ceilings, a walk-in closet, and a garden tub with room for candles. I could see us in that home. I could picture it clearly. I turned to Andy, who had been watching my reactions. “What about furniture?”

2 He grinned. He’d already thought of it. “No problem. John,” he called back to the salesman. We went back to the kitchen and family room area. And yes, it had a fireplace, tucked neatly into a corner. “Tell her about the furniture.” John was still leaning his bulk against the doorframe, picking his cuticles, unconcerned but probably in nicotine withdrawal. He said like it was the simplest thing in the world, “You can add in a furniture package. Pick whatever style and colors you want. As much or as little as you want.” Andy prompted him, “including curtains?” “Yep. Curtains, drapes.” He stood up straight now, his turn to take back over the sale. Time for the kill. “You can have it all match the cabinets and countertops in the kitchen, just like a professional designed it. Well, actually, they did. The packages have been professionally designed, of course.” Of course. I was trying to control the gleam in my eyes, but I couldn’t. Andy wanted me to like it, and I did. This was big because it was the first time I could truly see myself in my new upcoming roles, keeping house and taking care of our baby. A real wife. A real mother. Happy family values. It was the fairy tale, the one with the white picket fence and chocolate chip cookies in the oven and a tricycle on the front lawn. I said, “Is there a discount if we take this display model?” The salesman cast a glance at Andy, and Andy turned his nose up. “I don’t want one everybody and their cat’s been traipsing through.” He ran his hand along the island’s granite-look countertop. “I want it new, clean and new. Just for us.” He put his arm around me. “So what about a lot?” “We’ll do a land-home deal, Meredith. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of that. You just decide which furniture package you want.” We hugged, deeply, and I’m sure John was already counting up his commission. Andy laughed. “You run the home, and I’ll run the numbers.” Interesting wording, in hindsight. But it was that quick, that easy. Or it seemed that easy. Even at the time, somewhere at the back of my radar, I knew complications kept coming up. Fees for clearing the land and installing the well and septic, running the power. The huge John Deere mower that two acres necessitated. The Bush Whacker.

3 Full-service satellite dish with the maximum amount of channels. I knew there was some misunderstanding about the fees for delivery and set up doing the underpinning. But I wasn’t looking at that. I was lost planning and shopping. Getting ready for the wedding. Then afterwards, hanging those drapes, arranging furniture and silk potted plants. I spent I don’t even know how many hours taping wall seams so they looked like drywall and then painting the whole place. Andy spent hours, too. We dug flowerbeds and vegetable gardens. Created a home. Raised our son. I was in heaven, pretty much oblivious for the next four years.

Looking back, I guess the first absolutely clear sign was when the past due notice came on the home, or at least the one I knew about. Surely Andy had just gotten busy with work and just forgotten the due date. His job at Sutton Tire and Automotive had been easier when he had just worked there, under his father, before we even started dating. I never met Mr. Sutton. He had a massive coronary, right there on the floor of the shop itself, and then the whole responsibility had come down on Andy to keep the place running and profitable. I took Sean with me, of course, and ran the notice up there as soon as the mail came that day, right after lunch, thinking Andy had better take care of it ASAP. I hadn’t been to the shop for a while, maybe more than a year. Andy always seemed irritated when we went up there. The place had become increasingly run-down and dirty, tools and rags and tire parts laying around willy-nilly. There were four stations for rotating tires, and I had seen them all full in the past, but only one was in use that day, two Mexicans working there silent and fast. None of the faces inside the shop area looked familiar to me, most of them now brown, with the occasional Spanish word or two thrown out. We had argued about this before, but Andy insisted locals didn’t want to do the job for what he could pay them. He would never answer me whether or not these folks had their papers in order. I grabbed Sean firmly by the hand and walked up to the oldest looking one, thinking he was in charge, and asked where Andy was. He was using a sort of massive electric screwdriver to remove the lug nuts on an old, dented Explorer. Maybe I should have been making more of an effort to learn the business. Maybe I could have helped.

4 “Andy?” he asked in a thick accent, not even raising his head to look at me. The tool made a painful, loud and shrill whine as he took the last nut off. The place was incredibly loud and active, and unfriendly. Even Sean seemed intimidated, holding tightly to my hand and sticking by my side, when normally he would have been wandering around touching everything and yakking up a storm. “Donde Andy?” the Mexican said, and it sounded sarcastic to me. He looked quick and sharp over at another one, who shrugged and looked away, carrying two very used tires. They ignored me then, left me just standing there, a stranger in my husband’s own business. I took Sean inside the lobby to see if Sarah still ran the desk, the wife of old Mr. Sutton’s army buddy. She had been a comforting, motherly lady in such a hard, clanging place, but in her spot, talking loudly on the phone, was Andy’s partner Craig. Andy had decided to take on a partner about two years ago, despite his mother’s pleas to keep the ownership all in the family. I was sure all these changes had been Craig’s idea: retiring Sarah (I hoped retiring), the Mexicans. He hadn’t changed the lobby, though, not even to dust or clean the desk. The place still had the old faded wood paneling and still reeked sharply of rubber and engine oil and grime. You could barely see through the windows to read the weekly specials they’d written on them. I didn’t think they could change the smell of the place, given the work they did, but they could’ve made it look better. Could’ve taken some pride. Then again, maybe I should have been the one to do it. Craig hung up the phone when he saw us. “Meredith! Sean! You’re getting so big now! I bet you have all the little girls coming after you, huh?” Sean was friendly with most people he knew, but he’d always been stand-offish with Craig. He said hey to him, we’ve always taught him to be polite, but hid behind my leg. “Hey, buddy. How old are you now?” Sean looked at the floor. “He’s three and a half.” Craig said, “Wow, woo-hoo.” Sean wandered over to the coke machine, flipping the refund lever up and down. “That boy is growing! His mama must be taking good care of him.” Craig smiled his salesman’s smile and leaned toward me over the desk. “What can I do you for?” His fingernails were clean. “Where’s Andy?” “Andy’s in a meeting.”

5 “A meeting?” “Yeah.” He fidgeted with a pen. His elbows across the desktop covered whatever it was he’d been working on. “Can I tell him a message for you?” I considered handing him the past due notice to give to Andy, because I thought it needed immediate attention. I would’ve handed it to Sarah and would’ve been sure she’d have gotten it to him. And would’ve been discrete about it. “No,” I said, “I’ll tell him tonight when he gets home.” He nodded. “Well, see you later then. Don’t be such a stranger.” He turned back to the phone and began punching numbers. It seemed I had been dismissed. I called to Sean to come on, and I knew my son, that he was about to ask for a coke from that machine and possibly throw a bit of a fit when he didn’t get one. I gave him my stern look. “Let’s go by Dairy Queen,” I said, and we left.

“Shit,” Andy said that night. “Why did this come here?” He was holding the notice I’d handed to him right after he finished his shower. I wasn’t trying to nag, I just knew it was important. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that.” He walked to the kitchen, tossing the notice onto the island. He got a beer and popped the top. I hadn’t started dinner yet. “Is everything all right?” I asked. He hadn’t even looked inside it. The thing had been a presence in my life all afternoon, and here he was already beginning his evening calm-down ritual with the beer. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” He sat hard in his recliner, making the springs creak. He tilted it back, put his feet up, and turned on the news. His hair was wet and wavy and he smelled like almond soap. That was the one thing he asked: that he be able to clean up the minute he got home. He couldn’t stand to smell like the shop or have that grease under his fingernails at home. He ran his hands through his wet hair, making it stand up on end. Those Hollywood guys pay big money to get their hair to do that. I sat on the sectional near his chair, the notice still a presence to me, trying to find a way to bring the subject up again. Don’t get me wrong—he was never the type of husband to fly off the handle or the kind you have to tip-toe around, but I was trying hard

6 to figure out how a good wife would handle this situation. Should she bring it up again now, or later? “I haven’t started dinner yet. What do you want?” “Don’t matter.” He took a big sip. “Do you want me to grill something?” The news droned on in the background about how many had been killed in Iraq that day. “Or pizza? Let’s get pizza.” The news really was depressing. All these bad things happening all across the world and nothing you can do about them. “Did Sarah retire?” I asked. He looked at me. “Yeah.” Had Craig not told him I’d been there? “What about that?” I gestured to it, the notice, still there like a sore thumb on the island. He looked me in the eyes, his blue and deep and gentle as always. “Meredith, it’s okay. I’ll handle it. Tonight. Okay? Now where’s my boy?” He picked up the phone to call for pizza. I called Sean from his room. “Your daddy wants you.” He came running and leaped onto the recliner. Andy changed the channel to some cartoons and ordered two large pizzas, one supreme and one cheese, with breadsticks and wings and a two-liter. “We’ll have us a pizza party tonight. Yea!!” Sean said, “Yea!! Pizza party tonight!” And that was that. It was the last time a notice like that ever came to the house. But then the calls started, creditors asking for him, or telemarketers leaving messages about debt consolidation and financial counseling. And then all of that stopped, too. The police came a few months later.

Chapter 2

The nut grass was driving me crazy in the flowerbeds. We put down landscape fabric to keep the weeds down, but nut grass has got these blade-like ends that just push right through. And it multiplies like crazy. Invasive as hell. It does no good to pull it up unless you get the nut with it, which is down in the soil, and probably isn’t going to budge. And if you do have a shot at getting the nut to come up with the root, then you’re

7 going to tear a hole in your landscape fabric, a hole where future weeds can just pop right up. And it’s hard to kill, even with chemicals. So here’s what you do: you get scissors and cut the tops off. This is for looks, mostly. Then you spray the injured stump very carefully with Roundup. You better not get that stuff on anything you want to keep, so you better aim good. It’s tedious work and has to be repeated several times a season. This was what I was doing when they drove up, and if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with that surgery, I might have seen the headlights coming up the car path. I would’ve been able to—I don’t know, warn Andy. I heard a car door slam off to the right, then another. I stood up fast. The late afternoon light was heading toward dim and I felt vulnerable. Andy was in the back yard playing Spiderman with Sean. Two policemen walked up to me, their crisp blue uniforms crusted with all kinds of equipment and badges. I felt caught out in my work clothes, a flimsy stained tank top and grimy denim shorts worn thin in the rear end, which they both probably noticed when they drove up. I was filthy head to toe with dirt and weed bits, covered in sweat and old greasy sunscreen. The cop on the right scanned the yard. Andy had just mowed the grass out to the tree line, so it looked neat and tidy. The officer on the left scanned the house and the skirting. I scooted the severed weed tops together in as neat a pile as I could. “Ms. Sutton?” the cop on the right asked, in that stern judgmental way that makes you feel like you need to pee even though you’ve never broken a law in your life. He was middle-aged, silver-haired, the alpha of the two. “Yes,” I said, trying to wipe dirt from my hands onto my shorts. He hadn’t offered his hand to shake, though, and I put mine back down. It was really not a good time to entertain. He looked at his partner and tipped his head toward me. “What can I do for you, officers?” The other, younger policeman walked around me and squatted down to look at the flower bed, all the leather in and around his belt creaking. The radio on his shoulder cracked. “You got a nice little garden here.” The alpha walked back around the corner of the house and disappeared. I looked at the young one. “Nice garden,” he repeated. “Thanks. Where’s he going?” I wasn’t worried about Andy, but about Sean. And was the guy going to go to the back door and go inside my house? Could he do that? I started to go after him.

8 The younger officer cleared his throat. “Uh, what’s this here?” He pointed to a clump of purple salvia. “The bees sure seem to like it, don’t they?” “Look, officer what can I do for you?” He stood up and adjusted his creaky belt, with all the various equipment hanging from it, including a long heavy flashlight and a knife in its leather case. A gun. I’d never been that close to an officer of the law before, not at that point in my life. I was listening for noise from the back yard, and I think he was, too, though his expression was more curious than anything else. I tried to take my cue from him. I tried to keep my expression pleasant. He was calm. He was making casual conversation. But it didn’t sit right with me. I remembered the past due notice and thought it was ridiculous to send out the police about that. To send them to intimidate us, in our own home. The engine of their car ticked. “Hey,” he said, suddenly smiling. “Don’t I know you? Didn’t we go to high school together? In Tyler County?” An incredibly irritating question, for several reasons, but as I looked at him again, I did recognize him and thought I remembered his name. His dark hair was much shorter now, for the job I was sure, and he’d put on some pounds, the light blue stripe on his uniform bulging a bit around the pockets and the thighs. The other one had had a yellow stripe. “Jeff, right?” He nodded. “Meredith, it’s nice to see you again.” So, another survivor of Tyler County High had left that town. I couldn’t care less about high school. Four years and just enough miles away. Sean burst around the corner of the house then, running and talking at the same time, excited about the policemen at his own house! In a police car! He ran up to me and looked at me with the devil in his eyes. “Mommy, do they have a gun?” We were not supposed to say that word in our house. In this day and age, Andy and I didn’t want him to grow up thinking guns and violence were cool and fun. We’d just been through a phase where we’d have to set him in the corner several times a day for making a gun with his hand and saying “pow, pow.” He’d just gotten past that. Jeff said, “Sure, we’ve got guns, right here” and patted the holster hanging from that belt. Sean was clearly in awe, silent with huge eyes.

9 Andy and the middle-aged officer came around the corner then, Andy first, with his shoulders set back stiff and straight. The one in charge said, “Let’s talk over here,” gesturing with his head back toward their car. He was good with that head. Sean wanted to go with them. Andy told him to stay back with me, and Sean started to fuss about it, until Andy gave him a quick and irritated look, which he hardly ever did. I called Sean over to look at the bees on the salvia, which was all I could think of at the moment. The three men stood over by the police cruiser talking for quite a while, I don’t know how long, while the sun continued to get dimmer. I got a few more weeds cut and tried not to be too obvious about looking over there. Sean helped for a few minutes at the time and then shot imaginary webs at them, asking over and over what they were talking about, what they were doing. “Well,” I said, in a gossipy tone to signal that I was making up a fun story, something we did to develop his imagination. “They’re working on a really big investigation, a big case involving lots of important people in this town who might get in trouble. And they want Daddy’s help.” Sean’s eyes got even bigger than they had been earlier. “Daddy’s going to get the bad guys.” He grabbed a handful of limp weeds from the pile and threw them in the air. He thought his father hung the moon and stars, so of course it was the coolest thing ever that the police would want his help. “Stop that. And calm down, not so loud,” I told him. “We’ve got guests.” I wasn’t entirely wrong with my little pretend theory, though not entirely accurate, either. Funny how that works, when you spin stuff fast out of your head. The men kept shifting their bodies around from having their arms crossed, to arms on hips, to thumbs hooked into the back corners of the cop belts, while looking at each other, or looking down at the ground or up into the trees or back toward the house. Finally, the mosquitoes came out and got so bad, I went ahead and took Sean in for his bath and put him to bed. Then I took a shower and washed the grime and bug spray out of my hair, but put back on regular clothes instead of my nightgown, since they were still out there. Still talking. When Andy finally came inside, it was fully dark out, the night bugs loud and constant. I was on the couch, reading, or making the motions of it. He shut the front door, locked it, and stood looking out the door’s window a long time, much longer than it

10 would’ve taken for them to drive the car path back to the highway. When he drew a deep breath I asked, “What was that about?” He turned toward me but looked at his hand. “Oh,” he said. He went and got a beer. “Just some stuff about the shop.” I wondered what about an automotive and tire shop might interest the police. He sat much more carefully and slowly than usual onto his recliner and picked up the remote, but didn’t turn the television on. “About the Mexicans?” He looked at me then. “Yeah. And some other little business things. Nothing for you to worry about, honey. Nothing at all. Just small stuff.” He smiled at me and put down the remote, back to his old self, only tired around the eyes. “I’m going to take a shower now.” All of that was both the truth and not the truth. He went into the spare bedroom, where we had a home office set up, and shuffled papers on the desk and in the filing cabinet for an hour before he finally went and got ready for bed.

At the end of that week, I got a call from Mrs. Sutton. “They raided the shop. First thing this morning. Andrew has been arrested. He wants you to come up to the jail.” “Arrested? What for?” “He didn’t say. I called a lawyer for him, and he wants you to come up there, too. You bring Sean here to me and go up and see what this nonsense is about.” Ballard’s new 8.2 million-dollar Law Enforcement Center was on the main highway east-west through town, part of the downtown redevelopment initiative the newspaper had been yakking about for months. Citizens had been ranting in the newspaper about the cost of the new jail. I had trouble finding a parking space in the front. Circled several times, cussing the whole way. What did they think my Andy did? Who did they think they were, coming to my house like that with my little son right there, pretending they just “wanted some information.” Jesus. Well, Mrs. Sutton had said it was nonsense. She should know. I finally parked in the back with the police cars. Let them give me a ticket. I walked around to the front, through the big double glass doors, and was confronted with a white cinder block wall with paintings of judges all in a row, in black robes. On the right, at the entrance to a hall, a large walk-through metal detector. A

11 woman wearing a pink sweater, sitting behind the reception window said, “You don’t have a cell phone, do you? You’ll have to leave it in your car. And you’ll have to wait until they take their next break.” “I’m sorry?” “Court’s in session right now.” “I’m not here for that. I’m looking for the jail.” She paused. “This is the Superior Court.” Like I was supposed to know what any of this was, what it meant. I tried to keep my eyes from welling up. “M’am, can you tell me where the jail is?” She paused again and sighed. “Go back out and around to the west side of the building. Go in that door.” So I did, once it took me a minute to figure out which was the west side. The door was a single, plain-looking swing-type that looked like it should have said “employees only” or “deliveries only” or something of that nature. I followed an officer up to the door, and he opened it for me, smiling. I looked down, not able to smile back. Once again, a blank cinder block wall with no directions or signage of any sort. This time, a fake banana plant in a big terra cotta pot. Some new, state-of-the-art building this was. No wonder the taxpayers were so upset. The officer walked on past me, in a hurry, down the hall on the right, leaving me standing there clutching my purse. I didn’t really want to get in trouble. I didn’t want to go somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go. I was halfway between crying and throwing a hissy fit. I finally pulled myself together, put my purse on my shoulder, and walked down that hall, the only opening to anywhere I could see. It opened into a huge room subdivided by gray cubicles. And on the left, what had to be some sort of reception desk, and a woman in uniform behind it. “Excuse me, miss. I’m Meredith Sutton.” “Yes, can I help you?” Bored. “I was told my husband was here. Andy Sutton.” She looked at me sharply. “What’s he here for?” I could only shrug. “Do you know what this is regarding?”

12 No, I didn’t. She looked irritated at first, but then her face relaxed to indifference and she said, “Wait right here. I’ll go find somebody.” She walked off into the maze of cubicles. The place was a buzz of phones ringing and people muttering and laughing loudly and one actually crying out. On the other side of the reception desk were three benches, where sat several men, either in handcuffs or with their arms crossed defensively, one of which was shaking his head and muttering, “It ain’t fair, I tell you it ain’t fair.” One of the others told him, “shut up, man, ain’t nobody fucking with you, but you.” I waited in front of the desk, clutching my purse again, trying not to look uneasy. Trying not to be noticed. The lady came back and resumed her post behind the desk. “Miss, your husband is with his lawyer. You’ll have to wait.” She pointed to the benches. I walked over to the closest one and sat softly, trying not to take up too much room. I put my purse on my lap, not wanting to put it on the floor, wondering in a sarcastic way why I was so concerned about it in this place. It was the first time I’d ever been to a jail or police station. The first time I’d been around criminals. Well, other than the one ex-con my mother had briefly dated. But I’d never seen that side of his experience. I was a nervous wreck. There weren’t even any outdated magazines to look at. The muttering man continued his rant, “Fuckers come in and tell me what I did. I’ll tell them what I did not do. Like they know me.” He turned to me, “You think they know me?” I shook my head, oddly finding myself on his side. Old black men like him were easy targets, I’d read. The justice system and the underprivileged. One mistake in his past and they’d never leave him alone. “They don’t know shit about shit, come up there flashing the stupid badge, every time I turn around. Man’s got to make a living, don’t he? You know what?” He scooted uncomfortably close. Body odor and stale liquor wafted off him. “You know what? Do you?” I shook my head and leaned away against the bench’s arm. I heard, “Leon, leave her alone!” Leon said, “Yes, sah! You de man.” Then to me, quieter, “He de man, know what I mean?”

13 “Leon! What did I say?” My rescuer wasn’t any of the other men on the bench. It was Jeff, come from somewhere in cubicle-land. He gestured for me to step with him over to the side. “Meredith, what’s going on?” “They got Andy.” “Yeah, I know that. Have they let you see him yet?” “No, he’s with a lawyer, I guess.” “Oh, yes,” he said with a smile. Or was it a smirk? “I guess he is.” Somebody in the back yelled, and I jumped. “You ever been here before?” I shook my head. “Well, I don’t have anything big at the moment. Let me show you around. You’ve met Cynthia?” The woman at the desk. She smiled once and nodded once, and went back to her computer. “Come on back and I’ll introduce you around.” “Wait, Jeff. Nobody’s told me anything. I don’t know why we’re here. I don’t even know what this is about.” He stopped, put his hands on his hips with one leg cocked out. “Well, I better let Andy tell you that. I don’t think it would be my place.” “You can’t tell me anything?” “I don’t think Andy would appreciate that.” I considered it, and decided he was probably right. “I’m not really in the mood to meet all your friends at work.” He laughed. “I guess not. Okay. Come on back and meet one. Just one.” He led me back between the cubicles, in which desks were piled with folders in various states of disarray. I would have expected something more like Law and Order, where investigators put their desks back to back, in an open area, to facilitate teamwork. This felt like something from a send-up of corporate offices. Like a big warehouse of cops gathering intelligence on any little mistake somebody might make, piling up folders of evidence to use against you. He led me back to an actual office, not a cubicle, and which did not have huge glass windows with metal blinds like I would’ve expected it to. He knocked on the door. “Shiver. Got a minute?” He gestured me to come forward. “Meredith, this is Lieutenant Shiver, lead investigator on the . . . well, he’s familiar with what’s going on. Shiver, this is Meredith Sutton.”

14 Shiver was a gaunt, silver-haired man with a hollowed-out face. In plain clothes. He nodded curtly. “Mrs. Sutton.” Was it sarcastic? “Lieutenant Shiver.” I thought my tone probably was. “Meredith . . . uh, Mrs. Sutton needs a place to wait until she can see her husband. How about the break room?” Shiver looked at Jeff like he’d lost his mind. “Well, of course, the break room, which is where we often let the family members wait.” Ah, yes, sarcastic. A lovely man to be in charge of the investigation. “All right, thanks. Sorry for the bother.” Jeff turned to me as he led me to this famous break room. “I just thought you might want to meet him.” “Jeff, just tell me if this had anything to do with the Mexicans. I need to know something. The least you could do is tell me that.” “Let’s just say the Mexicans were very helpful, especially when we asked to see their documentation.” “What do you mean, helpful?” “It’s human nature, Meredith. I see it every day in this line of work. People will give you up in a heartbeat to save their own skin.”

Andy sat at the shiny metal table with his head in his hands. I stood there hugging my purse against my chest, this time for something to hug. Andy was distant. He wouldn’t look directly at me. I’d waited over three hours. I was tired and tense, and I wanted some answers. I wanted to demand he tell me what had happened, was he being framed, what did Craig and the Mexicans have to do with it, had he actually done anything. But he’d been here even longer than I had. And I supposed the wife in that situation should be supportive, not demanding. He sighed deeply, like he hadn’t breathed in the last few hours, but, still not looking at me, asked me to please sit down. I started not to, not to do what he’d asked me to, just for once, to see what he’d do, how he’d react, because that might give me some clue as to what was happening. But cops were probably watching through that one-way window, observing and taking notes and figuring our psychology. Jumping to judgments

15 about our relationship. At this point, I felt like they knew more about him than I did. I sat on the edge of the chair across from him. He asked, “Where’s Sean? You didn’t bring him up here, did you?” “Of course not.” That was the first thing he was going to say to me? Not explain why he was in jail, but demand to know where his son was? “Andy, what happened? Tell me what’s going on.” He said, “Meredith, I don’t know what’s going to happen now. So I have to tell you where everything is.” “Oh?” I put my purse on the table between us. It was probably significant that he wasn’t answering my questions. I wondered if those officers, probably standing right outside the door, would bring me water or a coke. “I know I’ve always been the one to handle everything around the house,” he began. I shot him a look. “The business end of it. There’s some stuff that needs to be straightened out. And at the shop, too.” He picked at a scratch in the table, like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. I sat with my arms folded. My mind went back and forth between wondering who it was I had married and feeling guilty for starting to feel angry at him. Surely this was all a mistake. He continued, “Some of the papers are at home, in the desk drawer where I keep the pistol.” I sat there. “Do you know where I mean? This is important, Meredith.” I’d never seen his blue eyes so hard. He looked tired and resigned. I nodded once. “The rest are in my office at the shop. At least they were. They might have taken them.” He sighed again. I knew about forced confessions. I wanted to put my arms around him and tell him everything would be okay. I wished he’d say he hadn’t done anything. He said, “I can’t remember which papers are where right now, but some of the payments are delinquent. Again, you’ll just have to figure that out. Best I can remember, it’s just some bills for parts and such, electricity, for the shop that you’ll have to worry about. You can just close the shop for the time being, but get any of those bills paid. Keep checking the mail there. The post office box key is in the desk, too. Are you getting this?” I nodded again. “Maybe you should write this down.” “I got it,” I snapped.

16 “Now,” he said, without even noticing. “The house. Even if you get a job, I don’t see how. . .” He rubbed his face, tapped the table, making a thin, tinny noise. “Just let the bank take back the tractor. And my truck. We don’t owe that much on your car, and we’re not behind on it.” Mine was a little Toyota. His was a full-size Eddie Bauer Explorer. We both got what we’d wanted. He pushed back away from the table and crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring my position. But again I didn’t think he even noticed. “And, I hate to say this, and I wouldn’t if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and I’m sorry, but I would suggest that you let the bank have the house, too. We’re too far behind to catch up on it.” He said, “If you do that, it’ll put you in a better position financially.” “Financially?” I asked. My heart dropped. How had things gotten so completely screwed up and me not notice it? What fantasy had I been living? And who had I been living with? “Call Joe.” I raised my eyebrow. “Fitzpatrick, the lawyer.” Oh, the one who had been in such a hurry he’d left before I could even meet him. “He’ll handle all that for you.” “Will this Joe tell me what happened?” “Meredith, this is serious. I’m trying to get you up to speed here.” “Really? It seems a little late and a lot short, Andy.” “Just go see Joe, Meredith.” “Our house, Andy? And so where are we supposed to live, Andy? What are we supposed to do now?” He looked at me like I was dense, like couldn’t I figure all that out for myself, because he had his own problems. That look was familiar. “What about your mother?” He cast his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, God. Thank Jesus Dad’s not here to see this. Oh, God.” He put his head down on the table and forgot I was there. I grabbed my purse and left. And you know what? Maybe he couldn’t tell me anything then, if those cops were watching and listening. Maybe he was better off to keep his mouth shut. But it sure kept me in the dark.

17 I couldn’t get an appointment to see Mr. Fitzpatrick for two days. Until then, I scanned the newspaper. The only thing I could see that seemed relevant was an article about rumors in the Hispanic community, that immigration rounded up illegal aliens in “several business locations” around town. Badcock Produce and several other agricultural concerns were listed by name, as well as a trucking company, but there wasn’t a complete listing of all the businesses involved. Apparently, the local police would neither confirm nor deny these reports. And the dates listed for these raids were in the week prior to our little catastrophe. Still, that had to be it. Craig had hired illegals and now Andy and me and Sean were going to have to pay for it. And Mrs. Sutton, who was footing the bill for the lawyer, bless her heart. An odd thing happened with her. When I had picked up Sean from her house after I left the jail, she asked me to tell her what was going on. Her question surprised me, especially since he’d called her, his mother and not his wife, with his phone call. “I don’t know. Andy wouldn’t say.” “Hmph.” She fussed around the kitchen, wiping already-clean counters. We’d long been on friendly terms, but there was always a certain distance. I knew what she did for a living. “Nobody told you anything? I would’ve thought they would’ve told the wife.” The wife is always the last to know. “What about you, Mrs. Sutton? Did they tell you?” I knew she’d done some psychic consulting for them in the past. Wouldn’t they have some consideration for a sort of colleague? Mrs. Sutton turned away from me to look out the kitchen window. “I didn’t talk to them.” I was aware that we were only a few feet from her closed-in garage, the office for her tarot card readings. The door was closed, which normally would have comforted me, a barrier between the coziness of the eat-in kitchen and the place where spirits told her their secrets. That’s what I believed about it then. I asked, “Was any of this in the cards?” She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. She refolded the dish towel and shook her head. “Nothing.” Not for the first or last time with her, I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or doing a diplomatic cover-up. “Promise me,” she said, “that after you talk to Fitzpatrick, that you’ll tell me.”

18 “Of course. Do you want to come?” I thought it might be easier to have someone with me. She walked to the back door and called out to Sean, “Your mother is here!” He came running, leaving the t-ball set in the middle of the yard. “I don’t think so.” She reminded Sean to wipe his shoes on the mat. “You don’t have anybody else to watch him?” I shook my head. I could call my mother, but didn’t really want to. Didn’t relish telling her all this and hearing her I-told-you-so’s. Mrs. Sutton said, “I don’t think he should be involved with any of this.” Sean said, “When’s Daddy coming home?” He set two action figures on the table, a Superman and a Green Goblin, balancing them so they stood facing each other. “I don’t know, baby. Not tonight.” “Why not?” “I don’t know, Sean, there’s some big huge misunderstanding that we’ve got to get straightened out, okay?” Mrs. Sutton gave me a disapproving look and said, “Soon, child. He’ll be home soon.” “Where is he?” “He’ll be home soon.” She sounded so sure. He seemed satisfied. It made me feel better, too, coming from her. I thought she of all people would know.

Fitzpatrick was a short, stocky man with his black hair in a comb-over. He was young, though, his voice still high like a boy’s. He asked me if it was okay if he ate his sandwich while we talked. He had to be back in judge’s chamber soon. Being new in town and not so long out of law school, he’d been drafted to help with the public defense of Davis Mobley, on trial for the robbery and murder of a family of migrant workers. “We’ve got to get a change of venue,” he said. “We’ll never get a fair trial here in this county. You’ve heard of the case, haven’t you?” “Yeah, sure.”

19 “Do you have in your mind already a sense of the guilt or innocence of Mr. Mobley?” “Oh, yeah.” This incident had enraged Andy from the get-go. One of the guys at the shop knew one of the victims. Andy had said, “They don’t use the banks, you know. So they’re easy targets. So rob the cash if you want, but you don’t have to beat them to a bloody pulp.” He’d get that vein in his head. “See?” Fitzpatrick said. “If the judge won’t grant a change of venue, then the conviction will just get overturned on appeal.” Fitzpatrick picked up his sandwich, pulled out some stray lettuce and laid it on the wrapper. “So what has Andy told you about his situation?” “Not one bloody thing.” He sighed. “I see.” “Except some financial stuff he wants me to take care of.” “Yes, if I remember correctly the home and the truck and some other things of that nature.” “I don’t know how to do any of that.” “Okay.” He chewed a bite and sipped his coke. Then he reached into a desk drawer and handed me a card. “This is a financial advisor, if you need one. I know Andy seemed to think I could handle all that, but I’m a criminal and insurance lawyer. Okay? I know a lot of lawyers who would just advise away, outside of their area of expertise. But you might need better financial advice than I could give you. Believe me.” I stared at the card. “And how much do financial advisors generally charge?” “Good point. You should be able to ask him before agreeing to anything, ask him up front what the charges would be. But I send clients to him all the time. It’s worth it if you can swing it. He can help you figure out how to avoid bankruptcy.” That word chilled me to my spine. “Or, if not, then just call the bank and tell them the situation and they’ll tell you what to do. Believe you me, they’d rather do it that way than have to send out somebody to repossess those things. It’s better if you show the initiative.” Repossess. Another chill. I was getting very tired, starting to have a hard time concentrating, and we hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.

20 “So,” I asked, “about Andy?” “He hasn’t told you anything?” “No. I can’t understand why. I think it’s probably about the Mexicans, though, right? I knew they weren’t legal.” He looked a bit surprised. “Sort of. But not really. You don’t get arrested for that in Georgia.” He sighed. “Not yet. Give them time.” He smoothed his comb-over with his free hand. “No, I’m afraid there was much more to this than that. I tell you what, why don’t I just list the charges, how would that be?” I nodded, a heavy feeling in my stomach getting heavier. Charges. Plural. “Here.” He handed me a pen and a yellow legal pad. “Do you want to write this down?” Funny, Andy had asked me the same thing about forty-eight hours ago. This time, I decided to. It gave my hands something to do besides fidget and pick at cuticles. “Okay. I won’t go into codes and legalistic language and all of that, but what we are looking at here are the following.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Theft by receiving stolen property, theft by conversion, theft by insurance fraud, and money laundering, basically. They’ve tried to threaten him that this is a federal crime but they have no proof that any of it was interstate, so I think that’s a bluff.” He kept talking, and I kept nodding and taking notes, my hand working automatically. My Andy? In his own father’s shop? The shop his father had dedicated decades to, and in the end, his life? This couldn’t be true. This had to be wrong. The wrong person. Fitzpatrick then said something about a plea bargain. I said, “What?” “We’re working on a deal. Andy pleads, in return for testimony in the trial of Craig Turner.” I slapped my palm on the legal pad, making him jump. “Craig! I knew it! I could’ve told you myself!” He nodded, considering this. “Do you mean you had a feeling, like a gut instinct, or do you mean you actually saw something?” “Oh, gut,” I said quickly. Good Lord, I didn’t want to end up testifying in this thing. What did I really know anyway? “Wait, wait. This is all too fast. Why are we so quick to get Andy to plead?” “Mrs. Sutton, he confessed.”

21 “Oh, well, he confessed.” Sarcasm had been my weapon of defense lately. “I know how that goes. Keep a guy in a locked room for hours and don’t even let him go to the bathroom, and he’ll say anything you want. Right?” He just looked at me. “Am I right? Confessions are useless. They don’t mean anything.” Law and Order being the basis of my knowledge. I was feeling extremely tired again. “Right?” He put what was left of his sandwich, on its wrapper, to the side. He put his hands palm-down on the desk and studied the back of them. “Mrs. Sutton, he’s going to plead. It was his idea, not mine. Although I do agree that it’s best, under the circumstances.” This was a bit slow to sink in. He waited a few beats. “I will do all in my power to make sure Andy gets the fairest results, the best deal that I can get him. You’re going to have to trust me on this. I know that’s asking a lot. I know that this is probably the biggest thing that’s ever happened to you, and it has to seem like the whole world is crumbling down around you.” It did indeed seem exactly that way. He did seem to genuinely understand. His eyes were kind. But then, so were Andy’s. “I am on your side in this.” I thought about getting a second opinion, from some lawyer I’d find myself, but I figured that would cost an extra fortune, just like the financial counselor. That was out of the question, too. I looked at him helplessly, thinking our future was in his hands. This small fellow with the big boy’s voice, at this huge desk filled with neatly stacked folders, surrounded on all sides by tall, dark bookcases filled with green hardback books. Books of law. He was the only one with the power to help us. I had to trust him.

A plea bargain. Mrs. Sutton took the news without a word or expression on her face. She looked down at her hands in her lap. The coffee she’d insisted I drink got cool and then downright cold and bitter as we sat, not knowing what to say. The television in the den blared cartoon noises. I stared down at the sloppy notes I’d written. “Should I take Sean to see him?” How should the mother protect her son in this situation? “I suppose so, at some point.” But first, I wanted to say a few things to him by myself. I’d spent hours after I’d put Sean to bed searching the internet for definitions of those terms, those charges. Theft by this, theft by that. Found lots of definitions, vague and unhelpful. Found lots of

22 lawyers’ sites promising to help those who’d gotten themselves in trouble. Some official sites with legal codes and unpronounceable language. Lots of information, none of which helped me very much. The best I could figure, and this, admittedly, was based on television shows, was that Craig had turned the place into a sort of chop shop. Maybe. I could easily see him getting himself involved with that, and with those Mexicans I bet as the labor behind it. But why did Andy ever agree to it? Because he had to have known, right? Did he stumble onto it, or was he in on it in the beginning? Was that why he hired Craig in the first place? That jailbird needed to sing to me, and explain himself. Cynthia at the front desk remembered me as Jeff’s friend. “I’m Andy Sutton’s wife,” I informed her. “How do I get in to see him now?” She took me around to a back part of the complex, me looking down and hoping nobody recognized me. Hoping Jeff wasn’t there. Depressed to think I would probably end up very familiar with this place, knowing its procedures by heart. Knowing all these people, and them knowing me, as the wife of a convict. She sat me in yet another waiting room, this one with a back wall of bars and a barred door with five small tables. I was the only one there. They brought Andy in, in orange coveralls and navy slip-on shoes. He looked awful, his hair straggly and dull. When I looked at him, I wanted to run to him, throw my arms around him, and ask forgiveness for ever doubting him. But when I blinked or looked away, I wanted to wring his neck, yell and cuss him out for doing this to us, to me. For doing it and for keeping the secret, for shutting me out of that large a part of his life. I settled for sitting across the table from him. He slumped back against the chair, his legs forward and close to mine. I could feel their heat. We sat silent for a while. The place echoed with distant shouts and the occasional clang of a barred door. It reeked of sweat and urine and stress. A uniformed cop stood a discrete distance away, but between Andy and the door. Big, impressive guard, right? I asked, “Have you been eating?” He looked like he hadn’t. He just shrugged. The guard cleared his throat. “Do you want me to bring you anything?” He shook his head. More silence, more slumping. “Do you want me to leave?” He shook his head and sighed. Really, he was starting to remind me of Sean, when the boy had done something wrong,

23 like put your watch in the toilet to test whether it really was waterproof, and wanted to control your reaction, wanted you to feel sorry for him so you couldn’t be mad. “At some point, Andy, you are going to have to tell me what happened.” I had started to say “what you did,” but it seemed too harsh. The little-boy manipulation did work to an extent. “It’s too late for all that, Meredith.” I sighed then. “I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.” “Well, it’ll all come out in time, won’t it? Everybody will know. Why does it even matter now? Have you tied up things at the shop yet? Have you called the bank about the house, like I asked you to?” “It’s been like two days, Andy. I’m a mother, you know, I can’t just run around all over the place with a four-year-old, and get anything done.” “Okay, okay.” The guard was rocking back and forth on his heels, checking his watch every now and then. Andy sat up. “How is Sean? You know, that’s one thing you can bring me, a picture of my boy. I can put it up on the wall over the bed. Look at it every night before I go to sleep.” I could imagine that. The cold steel frame of the bunk bed. Andy looking at the picture a lot more often than just at night, there not being much else to do. “Fine, a picture of Sean, then. He wants to see you. Am I allowed to bring him up here?” Andy looked horrified. “I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to remember me this way.” “So what should I tell him, then? He asks every day when you’re coming home and where you are. He thinks you’ve just disappeared off the face of the earth. What do you want me to tell him?” “I don’t know, Meredith.” “Should I tell him what you did? Or wait, I don’t even know what that is. When he asks me why daddy is in jail, what should I say? Or do you want me to make something up?” “Jesus, Meredith, I can’t deal with this right now. Just tell him something.” “Your mother keeps asking me too.”

24 He looked at me then. “She hasn’t been to see me yet.” The lost, feeling-sorry- for-himself little boy again. “Tell her she can come see me if she wants to.” I couldn’t predict whether she would. She wasn’t exactly the nurturing sort.

Once again, the newspaper was a fount of useful information. The headline read “104 Criminal Cases Scheduled.” Chief Judge Walter McKellar has ordered that on August 1, all 104 defendants be prepared to appear in court, and any defendant “who wished to plead guilty through a negotiated plea agreement should do so on that date.” If there was not enough time to hear all the pleas, then “the date of August 22 should be reserved for the overflows.” The article then gave a partial list of the accused, which did not include Andy or Craig, but did include drug felonies, arson, forgery, burglary with criminal trespass, murder. A bunch of crazies in this town. We’d be right in the middle of them. We were to appear in the afternoon session at 1:00 sharp, Fitzpatrick’s office let us know. At the old courtroom, known as McKellar’s own courtroom, in the old courthouse on Main Street. I remembered to leave my cell phone in the car. Mrs. Sutton had arranged for a friend of hers from church to watch Sean, so we rode together, in her old Pontiac, to the courthouse at 12:30. It always shocked me to see her in public, because she looked completely normal. I still half expected her to dress in hippie-style prairie skirts with rows of bangle bracelets and jingly earrings. Head scarf. Instead, she had a close-cut middle-aged hairdo, frosted, and wore a denim dress with blue sandals. She did always radiate a certain air, though. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to mess with her. We got in line to walk through the metal detector, which squealed anytime anyone with a purse or keys in their pocket walked through. No one stopped anybody to search further. A blonde woman turned back toward us. “I don’t know why they bother, then. One of these days, something’s going to happen. This town is not too small for something to happen. That’s what it’s going to take, I guess.” Mrs. Sutton said, simply, “They’re letting us in now.” I could feel her willing the woman to move forward. She turned around and did.

25 I’d never been in a courtroom before. Yet another new experience, thanks to my husband. The room was the size of a country church and had that air about it, much to my dislike. It was painted a pleasant enough off-white, with dark wood trim. Plenty of windows and natural light and a high, vaulted ceiling with huge old ceiling fans. But pews, actual wooden pews, without cushions. The judge would sit up at the front, on a raised dais behind a huge desk, as if he were pope or something, in a robe. Two back doors, one on each side, for the ceremonial participants to come and go through. The witness box on the right where folks would be “called” forth to “testify.” They’d put their right hand on the Bible. That feeling in the atmosphere of being judged and found wanting, with heavy consequences. The only thing missing would be the collection plate. We rose when the judge entered the room. He gave us instructions to sit quietly with no disruptions and not to leave until he called a recess, which would be around 3:00. He called the first case. Then the second. Then the third, and so on. Each time, the defendant and the sets of lawyers on both sides shifted and changed out. Defendants always came in through the back left door, sometimes escorted closely by officers. Sometimes the bailiff in uniform at the door just let them in and pointed which table to go to. One of the defendants came down from among the audience. I wondered then about the audience, the congregation. I wondered what sort of people we were. Families, friends, foes. The small-town curious. People caught like me, their lives suddenly changed forever, and the future resting on what was going to happen in this very room. And it was out of our hands. The players were up front. Those of us on the pews wiggled and shifted, the old polished wood creaking with every move. I sat on my foot, I crossed my ankles, I sat forward with my hands under my thighs. I tried everything I could think of to get comfortable. Mrs. Sutton sat like a stone and seemed to be in some sort of daze. I wondered if she could look forward and see how this was going to go. If the cards had told her anything about this yet. But you know the saying, that psychics and doctors and shrinks can’t treat their own families. They’re too close. The judge called recess at 3:05 and told those of us whose cases had not been called yet to return at 3:15. I was getting very tired and frustrated and couldn’t bear the thought that we might have to do this all again at the end of the month if time ran out.

26 That was too much time to wait. But Fitzpatrick was in the hall and said it wouldn’t be too much longer now. A couple of the earlier cases had been his, too. He still had that rushed, tense look about him. So went back in and sat some more. I could feel my blood pressure rising. I wondered if Andy’s was, too. I wondered what back hole of a little room they had him in, with the drug dealers and murderers and rapists. When it happened, it happened fast. The judge finished with an arson case. Then he pulled at the front of his robe, looked out at us in the audience, and said, “Y’all hot? Is the air on?” The bailiff in regular clothes went to the back and checked the thermostat, pronounced it to be fine. The judge cleared his throat and said, “Y’all have no idea what it’s like up here in this robe. Whew. And we were just talking about arson.” He laughed, and the audience laughed, too, a break from the tense monotony. Then he called a docket number and said, “State of Georgia versus Andrew David Sutton.” My stomach plummeted. This was it. Andy came out in the navy suit I’d brought up to the jail, the one he’d bought to go to church in, though we never really went. He looked better but had lost weight. The suit looked baggy and the color showed up the dark circles around his eyes. He didn’t try to look and find us. He just meekly went around to his spot at the defendant’s table. Fitzpatrick and a legal assistant sat on either side of him. One person from the District Attorney’s office, a brunette woman, sat on the prosecutor’s side. The judge said, “Mr. Sutton, you are charged with. . .” and proceeded to list the charges, along with the number of counts for each offense, and the numbers were multiple. Andy stood looking at the table, his shoulders seeming to stoop more each time a charge was read. “How do you plead?” Fitzpatrick said, “We plead guilty, Your Honor.” “Is that so, Mr. Sutton?” Andy looked up and nodded once. “Well, all right. And I have here a copy of the agreement reached with the State. You happy with this agreement?” he asked Fitzpatrick. “Yes, we are, Your Honor.” He looked at the prosecutor. “Is the State satisfied?”

27 Her voice was deeper and quieter than I expected. “The State is satisfied.” “Okay. Andrew David Sutton. I hereby sentence you to four years in a state facility, minus time served. To begin immediately.” He banged his gavel, and that was it. It was over, just that fast. No evidence presented, no details or explanations given. The bailiff in uniform waived Andy to come forward. He took Andy out that back door and then came back almost immediately to his post. It was like, poof, Andy was gone. Poof, here. Poof, gone, through that magic door. There were so many doors in the legal system. Fitzpatrick and the DA woman shook hands and smilingly exchanged a few pleasantries, then left out the other back door, on the right side. Four years. Jesus. Mrs. Sutton sat rooted to the pew, as she’d been all afternoon. We had to stay through the rest of the pleas and motions, until the judge dismissed the courtroom at 5:30. As we filed out between the rows, I saw Ms. Sutton do a double-take at someone just as that someone reached the exit doors. It looked like Linda Holt, Andy’s high school sweetheart. My heart dropped even further. She wasn’t even supposed to be in town anymore.

Chapter 3

I lay in bed that night, not able to stop thinking, another night of lost sleep, of missing Andy next to me, his breathing. The feeling of safety and security. But that had been an illusion. A lie. These had been the first nights I’d slept alone, by myself in this house out in the countryside, except for a little boy who wouldn’t stop asking why his Daddy wasn’t coming home. I didn’t know if I should tell him. What would it do to a four-year-old, in his formative early years, to know what his father had done and that he was going to prison? This was one for Dear Abby, or Dr. Phil. This house, my home. A quiet place of comfort. And lies. I’d have to give it up. And the furniture, too, that had come with it, the furniture that was exactly what I’d always wanted. All the work we had, and I had, put into making it a home. Gone. I wasn’t sure which loss hurt me more. An owl hooted. What an exotic, lonely sound.

28

I know he’d asked me, well told me, to get on with straightening out the shop, but I had bigger worries, like where we were going to live once I gave up my house. And how we were going to live. My plan was to go back to mother, see if I could go back to washing hair at the salon like I had in high school. Back to Milton, “Mill Town” we used to call it, dragging each syllable through as many Southern vowels as we could in our sarcasm. Me and Sheila, my best friend from childhood. I’d just have to go dragging myself, tail between my legs, back to that town and tell my mother, who I hadn’t spoken to in probably a year or more, that my marriage had failed and my husband was in jail and I had nowhere else to go. She’d get a big I- told-you-so out of that. I left Sean with Ms. Sutton again. She was really helping out, maybe out of guilt, I thought. I didn’t think she needed to keep canceling her tarot appointments to baby sit. She needed money too. “It’s fine,” she had said. “I enjoy spending time with my grandson. And that’s final. You’ve got a lot to deal with, and I like being the bad guy once in a while. Now, where’s that green-headed Barbie dude?” “Grandma!” Sean had said, as if she’d accused him of wearing a pink dress. “He’s not a Barbie.” “Well, then, what is he?” “An action figure.” She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “All right then, whatever you say, mister. Where is he? You be the good guy.” And she sat down right there on the den floor as he dumped his bag of action figures. I headed out on Highway 94, out of Ballard’s business district with the helpful strip malls, past the mostly tended yards with neat ranch houses, and out of the county toward my past. Back through several small county roads, just two-lane blacktop gray with age, back through piney woods past shotgun shacks and old trailers with broken down cars propped up on blocks in the yards. Yards with trees stuck in the ground randomly, with random clumps of day lilies and what have you sprouting up undesigned, uncontrolled, without a care. The occasional washing machine or sofa on the front porch. These were the roads that led to Milton, my jaw clenching at the thought of going back

29 there at all, much less to live and raise my son. I drove into town on the main road, which everybody called Front Street, even though it was First Avenue. I’d stop and see Sheila first, if she still worked at the café, the only one in the whole town. In our county schools, cliques were formed in cement by third or fourth grade. That’s when Sheila and I began being best friends. Mostly, I stayed over at her house. Sheila had a television in her room, and video games, and a stash of makeup she’d rescued from her mother’s bathroom trashcan. We’d make ourselves up like pop stars and learn the latest Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, anybody who’d made something of themselves. I would do Sheila’s makeup and hair, studying the latest Seventeen or whatever, and then she’d do mine. I couldn’t sing very well, so I was backup for her strong, crystal voice. I really thought she could’ve made it. I was the choreographer. I had us moving all over our “stage,” moving beyond our ages to the music. We performed either for the bathroom mirror, or for her mother and whoever her mother might be married to at the time. They said we were good, that we needed to find a talent show or find a teen or tween version of American Idol, that we could really make it. Oh, we studied those songs and dances, the bumping and grinding and bellydance moves harder than we ever studied schoolwork, because they were more relevant and important. They were the world, and Tyler County was not. But we didn’t know how to make the jump from bathroom to real stage in a real city. By the time we were freshmen in high school, we’d been through several of what Sheila’s mother called “phases,” plans for our futures, all different, but all somewhere else. Sheila was usually the one to come up with the ideas. Superstar in Hollywood or LA, lawyer in New York, broadcast journalist in Atlanta. We had the dreams but didn’t have the first clue how to achieve any of these things. They were just pipe dreams. Sheila’s mom thought we were fun, and funny. She would listen to us go on and on, and say “that sounds like a plan.” I never told my mother any of our ideas, our dreams. Maybe that’s why she acted like I betrayed her when I got married and left home. That seemed to bother her more than the fact that I’d gotten pregnant—the fact that I wanted to get married and leave her. Sheila got a car when she turned sixteen. An old, peeling Civic, not particularly cute and definitely not new, but we put the miles on it. Sheila’s mom had married

30 somebody Sheila didn’t particularly like. He was a bit creepy, though he mostly drank beer and slept. He once saw an old photo of Sheila dressed up like a pop star, striking a dancey pose, and said he wished he had known her back then. He kept one of the cabinets in the kitchen pretty well stocked with liquor, but couldn’t always keep track of what was supposed to be in there. So we were out of there—give us a tank of gas and a bottle of Jack Daniels and we’d drive those back roads for hours, just to see where they went. We’d push our courage, drive past the point where we knew about where we were, at night, to places where her cell phone didn’t have a signal, knowing we’d be in trouble if the car got a flat tire or the engine went out. Once, we came around a curve and hit a small alligator. The car went right over him, but it sounded like he took the whole bottom of the car off. We drove on for a while, scared out of our wits, and then turned back to see about the gator, like we could have done anything to help such a thing. But he was gone. Or, we couldn’t see him from the road. Then we got to worrying about the car, so we had to go back and ask him, the new stepfather, to check it out. He grumbled and groaned and got down on his hand and knees to look at the underside. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that thing. What the fuck were you doing?” He stood up and came very close to me, so that I smelled his sweat. “You girls having fun?” Sheila said, “Come on,” and we went back out on the road. Turned out that the car needed realigning. The wheels would make a bumping noise and the steering wheel would shake, but the stepfather kept saying there was nothing wrong with the goddamned thing, that Sheila had a big imagination, just like a woman. Then he’d ask Sheila when I was coming over again. A few months later her mother had to pay over three hundred dollars for two new tires and rims. Instead of admitting he’d been wrong, he turned it around on us. If the subject came up, he’d put on a big leering grin and say, with lots of emphasis, “What were you two doing that night? No telling what all two young things can get up to.” We didn’t stay home much. On weekend nights we’d fill up the tank and head to Ballard. Forty-five minutes wasn’t too far to go to a better place. In fact, we’d go to their football games, when we went to football games, and sometimes the dances afterwards. All we had to do was show our own high school ID cards. They didn’t care if you weren’t from there, as long as you

31 were a high school student. Their school had a small stadium instead of just some bleachers. The band was pretty darn good and the cheerleaders, too, and even though the team didn’t win much, they looked good in their uniforms. The whole school looked good. No big plastic buckets under leaking pipes, or whole patches of ceiling hanging halfway down. Bright, clean. The stalls on the bathroom actually had doors that closed. No gang graffiti, or at least they kept it painted over. It was a rich school compared to where we came from. Sheila and I both wanted to go to that high school so much we couldn’t stand it. We hung around that town so much that I think some Ballard kids thought we were from there. She kept threatening to call the school to see if they’d take us, if she was willing to make the forty-five minute drive herself every day. I was sure they wouldn’t, though. You had to stay in your county. She never got around to calling them anyway. Ballard is where I first met Andy. He was on the football team, although he mostly stood on the sidelines and didn’t play all that much. He played enough to get dirty, is what he always said. He was a senior, and we were sophomores. I first saw his picture in the football program and thought he was adorable. Those eyes always got me. Always soulful. An ad for Sutton Tire and Automotive said, “We love you! Go get ‘em, Andy!” At the dances I found out his girlfriend was one of the cheerleaders, of course. Her name was Linda and she lived in pill hill in Ballard, in a two-story house and had an upstairs maid and a downstairs maid. This is what a girl named Sandy told us. I thought he was cute, but I never in a million years would have thought we’d end up together. Sheila and I danced and talked and socialized just like we belonged there.

I was able to park right in front of the café door. The Café, which was actually its name, at least had fresh grey paint and two nice planters outside the door, with herbs and some kind of fountain grass and some pink petunias. It looked nice, like somebody cared. The rest of the building fronts along the street were still worn down, dusty, many of the stores empty and some boarded up. The town looked even more deserted than I remembered. Ten in the morning, and only five or six cars parked on front street. I didn’t know which, if any, would be Sheila’s. I hadn’t spoken to her in a while either, not since I got married and left this place and then she got married and stayed.

32 The café was pretty much deserted, except for two older men in the far back corner, lounging in the booth with their coffees and newspapers. The place looked clean, though well-used, burnt orange naugahyde showing worn spots. The wood-look paneling on the walls, still, out of date. It still had the same atmosphere it had always had, which is to say none. Still the few random framed photos of Burt, the owner, holding up a fish or posing with other men on a small boat, or beside a dead deer, rifle in his arms. But other than the photos, plain old plain. But clean. It smelled like strong coffee. I saw Sheila right away, bent over stocking napkins and takeout boxes into the cabinet under the cash register. I said, “Excuse me, miss?” She straightened up and opened her mouth like she was about to say something professional. Then she recognized me. “Girl, what are you doing here?” she came around the register and gave me a long hug, and I almost broke down right then, with the weight of all I needed to tell her about, but I didn’t want to start right off with bad news. She grabbed me by the hand and led me to a back booth away from the two old men, who were eyeing us and pretending not to. And it felt like all that time and distance between us had melted away. “No, really,” she said as we sat next to the plate glass window, the morning sun’s heat and glare warm on my arm. “What are you doing back in Milton?” “I might be moving back!” I said, forcing cheerfulness and not really succeeding. “What in Jesus’ name for?” She lowered her voice. “What’d he do? Who did he do? Give me her name.” She took a napkin from the dispenser and a pencil from her pocket and pretended she was going to write a name down. Good ole’ Sheila. She was exactly what I needed right then. She pushed the napkin and pencil to the side. “Seriously, what’s going on?” And I told her. About all the signs I’d missed like a dummy, about the police coming to our house, the guilty plea, about having to give up my house. About him leaving me with nothing, and no place to go, and not a single word of explanation. She kept having to hand me napkins because I couldn’t stop crying, just couldn’t control myself, and I was sorry for that, for showing up after years of not seeing her and dumping all my crap on her. I should’ve been stronger and not falling all apart. I’d been strong up until that point. Or in shock. She pressed my hands together between hers and listened.

33 When I finally finished, and had cried out all I could at the moment, we just sat for a while, looking at the sparse traffic out the window, watching the dust motes in the light. The sun was getting hotter. She got up and let down the old brown mini-blinds and angled them up. Then she went and got two cups of coffee for us. At first, I pushed mine aside, but she was right, it was what I needed. “Are you going to divorce him?” Divorce seemed such a defeat, like just throwing up my hands and giving up. Like establishing a pattern that would just continue. Still, who was this guy I had married? I apparently didn’t know him much at all. How could that work in the long run? “I can’t very well divorce him, even if I wanted to,” I said, “at least not yet. I’d end up on welfare.” She nodded, considering this. “So are you going to stay with your mother?” “I guess I’ll have to. I got to get some kind of a job. Does Marjorie still cut hair? “No, Meredith, Marjorie sold her shop and moved to Sinclair. Said she was sick of doing beehives for the old women around here and wanted a bigger place. It’s not even a salon anymore, I don’t think. Everybody I know goes there or to Ballard.” That news sunk my entire plan. “Who’s hiring around town?” “Not much of anybody. This town is dying except for the farmers and the migrants and the convenience stores. Burt just let his high school boy go, business has dropped off so.” “So what are you going to do?” “Ha.” She looked around the place and smiled. “I got plans.” “You should leave Mill-Town.” “Derek will never leave this place. He wants to buy the farm he’s been working.” She didn’t look very happy about that. “So what about you?” “Well, I see a future here. What’s your favorite type of food? When you go out to grab something quick or even when you go out to sit down and eat? What do you think of first?” “Andy likes. . .” “I didn’t ask about him. What do you think of first?”

34 I had to admire her scheming, as usual. “You mean tacos.” “Right. And there’s no place in this crummy little town to get them, which makes no sense. Now old Burt, see, is going to retire one of these days. Go off fishing somewhere and just not come back or something. And Derek and I have talked about this. We’re going to buy this café, see, and fix it up. We’d have our own produce, from the farm. It’ll work. Burt hasn’t changed the menu to keep up with the times, but I will. Business will be better. I’ll fix the place up, too. Did you see the outside, how much better it looks with a little paint and some flowers? That was me. What do you think?” I had to laugh, feeling much better to be around her again. “I think it’s brilliant. I think it could work.” “No, baby, it would work. Derek thinks people would get along better if they ‘broke bread’ together more. He thinks it’s the solution to the problems around here. Give them food, a little music, get them to relax with each other a little. Get past the language problem. I’m telling you, food is the answer.” But it sounded a bit like her dreams of being the next Beyonce. Like a good vision, but the devil would be in the details. Like, well, I could think of five million problems. I didn’t bring them up. She turned sideways in the booth, leaned her back against the window, and propped her feet up on the seat. She took a cigarette from an apron pocket and lit it, which she’s not supposed to do in an eating establishment, but who was there to fuss? I asked, “Have y’all thought about having a baby yet?” Her face got darker. “We’re trying. No luck yet. Not the right time, I guess.” “Do you want to raise a child in Milton?” She looked at me sharply. “What do you mean? We survived just fine, didn’t we?” She knew good and well what I meant. Even the Ballard newspapers reported what went on in Milton and Tyler County schools, the rock bottom test scores, less than fifty percent graduation rates and such. And in that moment, I saw her life, and the life of any future child they’d have. She’d cook and wait tables the rest of her life to make ends meet. They’d never own that farm of Derek’s dreams, he’d be a tenant farmer the rest of his career. The kid would grow up and stay there, too, doing what? Waiting tables or

35 farming somebody else’s land. He’d never leave, either. And I realized then, too, what a defining moment in my own life it had been when I had said “I do” in front of the minister and left this town. I might have to come back, but not for good. No way. I’d have to make sure Sean never got stuck here, either. My son would at least go to tech school, like his father had, or even college. “Speaking of surviving Milton, you’ll never guess who I ran into.” I told her about Jeff, being a big policeman and all.

Sheila’d been right about the salon. The tan doublewide was closed up and deserted, with a faded, unreadable sign duct-taped to the door. I had to come up with something, or I’d end up cropping tobacco or picking peas on Sheila’s farm for migrant pay. I’d just have to back my ears and ask my mother for help in that area, too. Mom’s trailer—and I do mean an old 1970s, wind tunnel-style trailer with the wheels still showing underneath and a patch of siding missing where she’d had to have the hot water heater worked on, patched with a piece of plywood—the trailer where I grew up and dreamed of getting out of this town, was out of the “city limits” on a back road, on a small half-acre she rented, along with the house, from her boss. Mom cleaned for him at his house and several of the offices and shops he owned in Milton. Maybe they’d need some more help. Mom’s ancient Cutlass was parked under the shelter, but for a while, she didn’t answer my knock. When she finally opened the door, I could tell she’d been asleep. “You should’ve called,” she said, walking back into the dim house. “I’m not normally here on Saturday afternoons now, he wants me to work. I called in sick today.” I shut the door, remembering how flimsy and unsolid it felt. We sat down on the faded brown sectional. I asked, “Migraine?” She nodded, and picked up an almost-empty glass of some brown liquor. So she still drank. Still smoked, too, judging from the smell, and the fact that there was a pack and a lighter on the end table. Decades of cigarette smoke soaked into the paneling and the old shag carpet and everything else, too. She took a long swallow and sighed, then looked at me with hooded eyes. She wanted sympathy. “I’m sorry you’re sick.” I thought, again.

36 “God, that man,” she started, and I wasn’t sure if she meant her boss or some new boyfriend. She shook her head, winced, and put her fingertips to her forehead. I sighed, went on and asked, “Which man?” “He’s such an asshole.” She curled her legs under her and lit up. “You know how it is. Finds some little something every day to bitch at you about so he doesn’t have to pay what you’re really worth. Then you have to clean up behind his ass all the fucking time, and the little comments about you’re not as young as you used to be and things starting to sag a little. I swear to you, one of these days. . .” She pointed at me with the cigarette between her fingers, but I’d heard this all before. Once in high school, before I’d gotten the part-time job in the salon, I had worked with her at the boss’s house, getting it ready for some big party he was throwing. He and his wife. With her and my mom right there in the room, he informed me that my ass was heart-shaped and made the shape with his hands. But Mom will never give her notice. She just likes to complain. She really ought to come up with a few new ones, just for variety. She went on and on, then, with the whole list of complaints about her job, about the house and how he wouldn’t fix anything—sorry as a boss and even sorrier as a landlord—but really, who would want him to come in their house—and then onto her bodily aches and pains—the headaches and the bad cramps and now her back is kicking in too and Jesus so tired all the time—did I think maybe she had Chronic Fatigue? Did I know they think now it has something do to with a deficiency of dopamine or serotonin or something? As she went on with the litany, I looked around the trailer. I had always been the one to clean this house. She did it all day at work, didn’t want to have to do it when she got off, etc. It wasn’t filthy, but rather very dry and yellow and dusty. I could see the trash can in the kitchen overflowing with takeout boxes and a liquor bottle or two, and some beer cans. Dirty dishes stacked neatly all over the countertops and probably in the sink. The place was tinier than I remembered, too. The old television set sitting on what was really a nightstand, with rabbit ears. No cable out here. The satellite people apparently hadn’t gotten to her yet. The third bedroom probably still full of every piece of junk she didn’t feel like hauling to the dump. Every flower I’d planted in front she’d let die. I could not raise Sean here. I just couldn’t. And I couldn’t come back there, myself. No way in hell.

37 “Mom,” I interrupted her. “I’ve got to tell you something in case you hear it around town or read it in the papers,” though truth was, she would’ve already read it, if she read the papers, which she didn’t. She finished her cigarette and lit another one. “Andy’s in prison now.” She uncurled her legs and stretched them out on the coffee table. “Oh, details, sugar, every single one.” As I talked she got angry and smoked faster, in hog heaven to have a new crisis. I told her just the facts about the arrest and the sentencing. “I knew it! I knew he had that in him. I could see it in his eyes. I could’ve told you that boy was bad news.” “Oh, please.” “I told you about men, Mer, they’ll leave you high and dry and without a penny to your name.” I didn’t have anything to say to that. I was trying not to cry again, not to give her the satisfaction of being completely right. “What are you going to do? Tell me that. He didn’t think of that, did he?” She got up and came back with a bottle of spiced rum and an extra glass. She poured me some, and herself too, but I didn’t drink mine. “Son of a bitch. Right? He knocks you up while you’re still in high school, gives you a good life for a while, then yanks it all away. Right? Now you probably can’t even get a credit card in your name.” I hadn’t thought of that. Credit cards. She added several more curses and cuss words. I thought maybe I should sic her on him. If you can keep her attention, she can be a bulldog. “Well, what are you going to do?” “I have to stay in Ballard. I can’t come back here.” “Why?” I couldn’t say it to her, but what I did say was true. “There’s better jobs there.” She nodded, in agreement that was really too quick for me. “Ain’t shit here.” She nodded again, put the glass to her forehead, still holding a cigarette between her fingers, careless of the ashes. “Ballard’s better. Ballard’s what you need to do. That’s the one thing you done right, you know. Didn’t let yourself get stuck here in this shit hole like I did. If I’d have known your father would up and leave me with nothing.” She kept talking, about my father leaving when I was two, the typical went-out-for-milk story. Folding my crisis back into hers.

38 Well, did I expect her to beg me? Or even suggest I come back home to mommy? She wasn’t making the first gesture to let me come back, and I was both relieved and pissed off. That’s what it’s like with her. I could tell that she was starting to feel restless again, feeling the itch, starting on the up cycle. I figured out in high school that it was a regular up and down. She’d talk about leaving town for a better one but then she’d go out one night to the Pit Stop. She’d get herself all dolled up, even borrowing my short jean skirt. I wondered if she bought it for me just so she could borrow it. She’d paint up her face and eyes with every shade of old shiny blue while blasting Shania Twain on the portable CD player, her attitude more than a little bitchy, curling her frizzled blonde hair in ringlets. If I didn’t have a date or plans with Sheila on such a night, she’d razz me for staying in on a weekend and reading. “You’ll be an old maid, you know. Spinsters read, you know. Geeks who speak fake languages, you know. You waste all your talents away on a damned book. You think the men are going to come out here to bloody fucking Egypt and find you?” Then she’d hand me a can of beer and tell me I was too serious, needed to let loose a little. “Although,” she would grin suggestively and wiggle her butt, “somebody’s gotta be responsible around here, don’t they?” This would continue well after she’d hooked up with a local and brought him home a few times. One guy, his name was Ted or Fred or something like that—she never found out his last name as far as I knew. He was in town one tobacco cropping season. When she met him, he had a head cold, or something, and no alarm clock, so she went right out and took him to CVS and bought him liquid cold medicine and a clock and took him home and tucked him in. Then to make sure he didn’t sleep through the alarm the next morning she set hers at five am and called him. “Honey, it’s time for work,” I could hear through the thin walls. “Baby, wake up.” She kept on for a while, he was apparently very out of it. The next night, I got back home and Mom was still out dancing. Then when I got up about eleven that Sunday morning to take a shower, I met him coming out of our one bathroom. Long story short, it lasted about a week and a half, during which time she loaned him money, bought him various other living supplies. He kept being too sick to show up for his job, and she gave up calling his motel room after two or three days of not hearing from him.

39 The pattern is this: after one of those phases comes the other end of the cycle, repentance and church, hellfire and all that. “Serves me right,” she said after Ted/Fred skipped town. “I should’ve known. I could’ve written that book myself. Dumb, dumb, dumb.” She hit herself hard on the forehead, sitting on my chenille bedspread, past the time I’d have rather been asleep. “Such is the wages of sin. But the devil rules this world, and every once in a while, it just builds up in you. You get that in you, the full moon or whatever. You got to let it out. You know?” I got out from under the covers and started folding clean underwear I’d piled on my dresser earlier. This was not something I wanted to talk about with my mother. When she went to church, she went to Piney Spring, a tiny fundamentalist white little picturesque church with the graveyard right there in the front, of all places. Parking was to the sides. She dragged me with her until I got to be high-school age. I guess she got tired of my wiggling and shifting and rolling my eyes. I could never get into it. The preacher would sing-song his way through guilting us over every little bit of appetite we ever enjoyed—the road to heaven is narrow, high, it’s HARD, I tell you—his ample stomach hanging over his Sansabelts and his brushed-over lock of hair coming unsprayed, draping over his sweaty forehead. Nothing he said ever made sense to me. But most everyone else seemed to lap it up, the guilt and the self-punishment. People would go up to the front in tears and testify about the most boring things: being jealous of the neighbor’s full set of china, coveting somebody else’s wife, breaking promises or taking office supplies from work or not being the best husband/wife/parent/child they could be. Everybody then was supposed to cry and cry and hug and invite each other to take our turn telling our deepest, darkest, most trivial secrets. No way.

That churchiness in her was one reason why she took such a deep dislike to Andy’s mother. When we’d first started dating, before she’d even met him, I made the mistake of telling her that Mrs. Sutton was Sister Pearl and read fortunes for a living. I was fixing spaghetti while she kicked back with a beer, her bare feet propped up on the coffee table. She actually did a double-take. “What?”

40 It was something I’d been intimidated by too, but I didn’t want her to know it. “She’s a psychic.” “A what?” “Got a big sign out in front of her house, says ‘Palm Reader.’ In big letters.” “Say that again?” “Palm Reader. But she can do tarot cards and crystal balls and all that kind of shit.” “Watch your mouth.” I stirred the noodles. The wind picked up outside the kitchen window. A storm was coming. “She could tell you who your next boyfriend will be. Or where your last one went.” “Do not make fun of that.” She sat up straight now, the beer on the coffee table. Her voice was getting louder, her tone sterner. I knew what she was thinking, and it was something that had been bothering me, too. Spirits. Demons. The Devil. Who knew what else whispering in a psychic’s ear just enough truth to get people to fall for it, and then evil lies after that. Some psychics on television admitted they had their own group of spirits they talked to, their spirit guides, who gave them all their information. This was why you weren’t supposed to play with Ouija Boards. Deep down inside this had always bothered me about Mrs. Sutton, though she never said anything about where she got her information. Still, where else would it come from? The sweaty preacher always said, “We are not given to know what is yet to come.” I never mentioned it again, but of course that would be the kind of thing nobody would forget, especially Mom. She didn’t tease me about it, so I knew it bothered her.

I had tried three different stick tests, but they all said the same thing. I wrapped them in toilet tissue and hid them in the bathroom trash can until I could show them to Sheila. It was easier to show her than to say it out loud. “Oh, my god,” she’d said. “Sit down.” She made me sit on the toilet seat, the fake wood sticking to my legs underneath my shorts. She sat on the edge of the tub. “Jesus, let me think.” She tightened her ponytail.

41 “What’s to think about, Sheila? It is what it is.” “Christ, Meredith, this is for real.” “I know, and we’re almost at the end of our senior year. This could be a good thing.” Sheila had started dating Derek about a month after I started with Andy. He’d graduated the year before, from Milton, and was already tenant farming with his father. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Derek yet. “A good thing? Have you told Andy? No? Then we’ll see about that. Jeez.” But I couldn’t get her to understand. I was afraid, sure, but it wasn’t a tragedy. I had no idea what it meant for my future, but I hadn’t really planned anything for the future anyway. I’d had no concrete vision of that at all. This at least would lead to some kind of plan, one way or the other.

Andy had picked me up at Milton’s small public library after he got off work. I’d gone there after school, as I often did, but for once couldn’t concentrate to read. Jane Eyre just blurred into blank pages. I couldn’t predict Andy’s reaction at all because I was sure he’d just dated me as a rebound after he and Linda broke up. I was prepared, no matter what he decided to do. He suggested we drive out to Banks Pond and talk, and later I wondered about that, his wanting to talk, but at the time, my situation was the only thing on my mind. We drove almost all the way to Ballard, then, both absorbed in our own thoughts, and parked beside the old red barn, almost fallen down, with the beautiful view of the pond. It was our spot. Private property of someone’s, but because only a few teenagers went out there, and not the big crowds of party animals, nobody seemed to mind. It was there that Sean had been conceived just weeks before. We parked and looked out at the water and the cattails waving in the breeze, me sitting on my foot with my knee touching his leg, just barely. “Meredith,” he started, “how long’ve we been going out now?” There was a distance in his voice, the way he sat there looking out over the pond without putting his arm around me or even touching me at all. But this had to be said. I sat up and put both feet on the floorboard. “Andy, I’ve got to tell you something. This is big, and I don’t know if you’re going to like it.” “What?”

42 Would this be his worst nightmare? I thought he just might do the right thing, the responsible thing, but I might be wrong. What if he abandoned me? I was stuck, then, speechless, pretty much knowing that the next few minutes would determine the course of my life from then on. And I couldn’t think of the words to do it. Not one thing came to me from all the books I’d read or movies I’d seen. So I just said, quickly and quietly, “I’m pregnant.” I wanted to be strong and confident, not seem needy, but the corners of my eyes filled up and I turned to look out the window on my side. Another car was parked about a hundred yards away. They were probably screwing. Making love. Good luck. I blinked hard not to let the tears actually roll out. That would have been a defeat. I’d dissolve into a girly-girl weak mess. So I fought all this by myself on my side of the car, waiting to hear some reaction from him. He shifted in his seat. I continued to fight my own battle, winning slowly, the trees and that other car out the window getting gradually less blurry. The knot around my heart gradually lessening. Getting easier to breathe. I wanted to reach out to him, to hold onto him, but he had to make the first gesture to me. He had to make the decision to do it. I knew he still loved her. I’d known that all along. I could make it on my own if I had to, somehow. Plenty of women do, all the time. My mother had done it, when my father left. I didn’t even remember him, and I got along just fine. My baby and I would make it. After what seemed like about an hour, I heard Andy sigh, and then he put his hand on my shoulder, so gently I could hardly feel it. I turned to look out the front windshield, bracing myself for whatever it was he was going to say. He pulled his hand away then, the lingering warmth making me feel completely needy again, like a sucking chest wound, but I kept my facial expression strong. The decision had to be his. “Meredith,” he said, “look at me.” I couldn’t look in his eyes. I just couldn’t. Then he pulled me to him and hugged me hard and long, stroking my hair. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ll make it.”

And so he did choose to do the right thing. And in doing that, he chose me. So I had to tell Mom next. I did it as I chopped lettuce for a salad, needing something to do. Once again, a reaction I couldn’t predict. She’d either think it was the

43 most wonderful thing in the world, or she’d kick me out of the house. So she sat on the couch with a Bourbon and Coke as I told her about what the sticks said, and about telling Andy, and how he proposed to me right away. At first, she just sat there and looked at me. I kept chopping. Then she let me have it. She jumped up and paced the den floor and delivered her tirade. She said I was careless, a dumb, silly, immature girl to end up pregnant. I was far too young to get married and have a baby, this would ruin my life, that I’d wake up one day when I was her age and regret it, etc., etc. How she’d drive me to Ballard or Sinclair herself and give me some money to take care of it, although the “shit head boy” with the “lunatic mother” should be the one to do it. I put the knife down and went to my room. If she wanted to eat, she could finish dinner. I never even told Andy about Mom’s reaction. I had told him I needed to tell her by myself. “Yeah,” he had said, “she’d kill me.” Later, when he asked me how she’d taken it, I just said she would be fine with it, in time. “You know her,” I said, “it just takes some time sometimes for her to adjust.” “I’ll have to win her over, then,” he said, with his charming grin. It would’ve won me over, and had, several times. But I thought, good luck.

Oddly enough, I did know generally how Mrs. Sutton would take it. The same way she has taken most everything. Andy wanted me there, so he grilled us dinner at her house and we ate in her kitchen, at the cozy little round table. “We should be eating in the dining room,” she said. “We should use the nice china and napkins and so forth. We shouldn’t ask guests to use our everyday.” “Mama, the dining room is too stuffy. This is friendlier, like family.” And that was a good segue. Andy took my hand across the table, and we told her that we were getting married, as soon as I graduated high school, and that we had a family on the way, her first grandchild. She just nodded, pretty much without emotion. She just sat there and took it like an adult. She took it like she already knew. It was awkward. She congratulated us rather formally. Then we finished our steaks in silence, the silverware clanking on her Corelle plates, the ice clinking in the

44 glasses when we drank tea. Then we all cleared our plates, put the tea and A-1 back in the refrigerator, shoved our chairs back under the table. Then she walked over to me and kissed me on the forehead. “Welcome to the family.” And she walked back toward the bathroom.

Mom wouldn’t let up on me. “You are far too young to be having babies and tying yourself to some so-called man. And you’ve known him, what, a few months? He’s all of, what? Twenty years old? This is your senior year, for Christ sake. Don’t blow the rest of your life.” She also didn’t want me to keep going to school while I was pregnant. Andy was the one who convinced me to finish. I’d only be three months along by graduation. I wouldn’t be showing. No one in Milton would have to know. I wanted Mom to meet Mrs. Sutton, to get to know the woman who raised the man I was about to marry. My idea was that everybody could come see me and Sheila graduate and then maybe all go to Western Sizzlin’ afterwards. I wanted Mom and Mrs. Sutton to meet at least once before they sat up in front of the church to give their only children away. I still think things might have worked better if we’d done it that way. But Sheila wanted just the two of us to party together one last time. “Plus,” she said over the phone, “it can be like your stag party. Your last fling before you give it all away and become an old married hag.” So everybody came to watch the graduation ceremony, such as it was. They sat in the lunchroom folding chairs while our graduating class of fifty-one paraded across the teensy stage of the cafeteria/auditorium in our bright green, satiny robes. Mrs. Sutton and Andy sat near the center aisle, where he’d wave to me every time I looked back. Mom came in at the very last minute before the ceremony began and stood in the back. After we listened to the boring, “inspirational” speech and took our fake diplomas from the mayor, we filed outside and lined up in three rows, and threw our hats into the air. Mom came running up first with her camera, so she got pictures of me and Sheila, and then Sheila got pictures of me and Mom. Then Mom said she had a migraine and had better go. “Wait,” I said. “Just wait a minute and I’ll find Andy and Mrs. Sutton.”

45 “Not today, Meredith. I got to get out of this crowd and this heat.” She fanned herself with the photocopied program. “I’ll meet the woman some other day.” And she told us to have fun, giving me a hard glance as she left. Mrs. Sutton and Andy reached us a few minutes later. “Oh,” Mrs. Sutton said, “I’d hoped I could meet your mother, Meredith.” She was fanning herself with the program as well. “Andy tells me she looks more like your sister.” “She said to give you her regrets. The heat made her sick.” I knew she’d know I was lying, about the regrets. “That’s too bad.” She handed me a pink rose bud. “Congratulations, you two.” She and Andy took a number of pictures, Mrs. Sutton standing stiffly, clutching her purse rather than putting her arm around me or even her son. But she was smiling. Then Andy hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and told me and Sheila to go off and have a wonderful time. So we did. No alcohol for me, and it was my decision, as an adult now. It was my own mess I’d gotten myself into. But I was happy. That fake diploma and that baby in my belly were my ticket out. Out of Milton, out of the old brown trailer on Mr. Asshole Boss’s property. The circumstances could have been a bit better, but I had made it out.

So Mom wasn’t going to meet Mrs. Sutton until the day of the wedding, and I could sense a catastrophe looming. She had resisted all our invitations to meet her, and she had resisted all of Andy’s best charms to win her over. She’d be nice enough to his face, although very polite and cool. “Have a nice evening” when he left, and so on. But then she’d quietly go into her litany. That I was foolish, chasing a fairy tale, that I was being selfish. I had no idea what the real world was like, blah, blah, blah. One night about a week before the wedding I got up and went to the refrigerator to get her a beer so she’d calm down. “Well, mother,” I said, “if you don’t agree with the wedding, then just don’t come. I mean, if you’re going to have this attitude, then you’ll just ruin it anyway. ” I handed the can to her and went back to get myself a Sprite. She popped the top and set the can down on the coffee table hard enough that some spilled out. She welled her face up and started to cry. “How could you think that

46 your own mother wouldn’t go to her only daughter’s wedding? How can you think that about me? I just wish for once you’d try to understand my side of it.” She grabbed the beer, stomped back to her bedroom, and slammed the door. So as I made dinner, I went through the usual feelings of anger at her selfishness and insecurities, combined with guilt over not being a better daughter myself. Both at the same time.

I went up until the day of the wedding thinking she wouldn’t come. Sheila and I planned the whole thing. Andy and I both felt that it should be small and inexpensive so we could put his money toward the house and land that we’d just gotten set up. I certainly didn’t have much money of my own, although I did order my own dress from a JC Penney. I was practical and got an ivory-colored knee-length dress that was just one step fancier than Sunday. I didn’t need the frou-frous and frills of the stereotypical doll dress, with beads that fall off and extensive zippers that break, or lace that tears when you walk. Mutton-chop sleeves that look ridiculous anyway. Sheila picked out a salmon-colored dress that could be hemmed a little higher, later, to be worn again. So the whole thing took place at the little white church with the sweaty preacher on a Saturday afternoon almost a month after graduation. Sheila’s cousin played the piano and her uncle sang “We’ve Only Just Begun.” It was his suggestion. Andy had arranged for a few ferns and a big candelabra, and his friend Josh to take pictures and a video. Mrs. Sutton had insisted that since we were having such a simple wedding and weren’t having a rehearsal supper, that she would handle the refreshments at the reception. I hear her wording—“such a simple wedding.” I just wanted it to be over, I wanted to be hitched and move into our home and forget our crazy families so we could make our own. On the day, when Sheila picked me up and we packed the last of my bags into her car, Mom was getting into the shower. There was an empty Jack Daniels on the kitchen counter, in plain sight. But she did come. She brought a box of Kleenex and cried uncontrollably the whole time, stumbling down the aisle on Sheila’s brother’s arm. When the preacher asked if anyone objected, the church was silent except for the loud air conditioner and then a

47 wail from her. She was making a scene. I wanted her to go home, I wanted her to get another migraine. I didn’t want her to meet Mrs. Sutton, then. At the reception, after Andy and I had posed with goblets of grape juice and the cake knife, Mom walked up to us with an envelope. She handed it to me and said loudly, “Here. So you wouldn’t think badly of your mother. To show I care.” Then she turned around and walked to the back corner of the room near the bathrooms and sat with her arms crossed. I saw Mrs. Sutton walk over to her and was worried that she had been sucked into my Mom’s poor-little-me act. Mrs. Sutton said a few words to Mom, and Mom turned her head away. Mrs. Sutton said a few more, pointing back in mine and Andy’s direction, shaking her pointed finger a few times. Mom sat like statue with her head turned away. Mrs. Sutton gave up and resumed her post at the groom’s cake. That’s how they “met.” Really, I wanted the reception to be over. I wanted all the family and cousins and high school buddies to go away. Then Andy and I could go to our home, unpack all our things, and start our new lives together, just us.

Mom, in her childish, alcoholic way, had been right. That’s what bothered me most, as I sat in Mom’s dusty, dim den four years after that lovely wedding memory. That I’d been so ready to do anything to get out of this town and out of her house, and look how it had turned out. And she, of course, wouldn’t offer a shoulder to cry on, or anything but an I-told-you-so. And she droned on and on about the usual complaints that made my stomach churn, and she didn’t even once ask about Sean. I looked around the trailer and saw a picture of him, taken when he’d turned two, in a blue mock suit, holding his favorite brown teddy bear. It was fastened to the refrigerator door with a bare magnet. Another picture of him was a framed snapshot, Sean being hugged by Grandma Ruth, in one of the visits here. It sat on the kitchen counter. Mom never was one for a decorator sense. “I just don’t think I can handle that man much longer. He’s got to be the worst boss in the world. I swear if he pats my ass one more time, I’m just going to quit. I know I’ve said that before, but I’m getting real serious about it. I’m going to quit and walk

48 away and not look back. I just can’t take it. You have no idea. I don’t feel like I have any options left.” I realized I did have other options than moving back to Milton. I went to the bathroom before hitting the road, and just inside the door were three full-size trash bags overflowing with beer cans and bottles. “Oh!” Mom said, “just ignore all that. We had a little get-together.” “We?” “Me and Bud. Hey, he’ll be home soon, if you want to stay and meet him.” I didn’t. I knew him already, essentially. As I drove back through Milton on my way back home, I drove by the old high school. It looked like an old, broken-down prison. Same as always. Years from now, it’d probably be exactly the same, with faded lime-green paint missing in chunks, the chunks revealing black mold and what was probably asbestos, for all I knew. And probably the same old teachers, who certainly wouldn’t be offered better jobs anywhere else. The same tired, distracted teachers who couldn’t recognize a simple mistake in the teacher’s guide and who’d make fun of you if you’d read a few books, which they of course had not read themselves. No. This was absolute confirmation that I was making the right decision. I wasn’t bringing my son here. Mrs. Sutton would just have to step up to the plate, so to speak. She owed me.

Chapter 4

I turned off the highway, left into the dusty gravel of Mrs. Sutton’s driveway, just in front of a semi going a lot faster than I’d thought it was, way too fast on this four-lane coming into a town. He blared his horn at me. I flipped him off, too late. He was halfway to town by then. I parked my car behind a shiny black Buick and sat on the front steps, since Mrs. Sutton was with a client. Before I got settled good, there was another semi and two cars, way too fast. I imagined that this used to be a peaceful place, out of the city limits. But since the highway had been four-laned, as Mrs.Sutton says, it had became the

49 main way to get to town, in one direction, or to Sinclair in the other direction. Her brick ranch house was set about two hundred feet back from the highway, her front yard full of tall old pines that sighed and hissed in any little breeze, somewhat of a barrier between home and highway. The trees were doing that, making that oddly soothing sound, as I sat there on the front steps wishing I still smoked. I looked at my watch. Sean was apparently still asleep from his nap, or I’d hear cartoons coming from the den television. The pine trees were comforting. They made the hair on your arm stand up, but the same way the cry of an eagle does, or a hoot owl. A deep, comforting thrill, when you could hear them between cars and trucks. Sean would still have to stay in the back yard to play. He wasn’t quite old enough to be trusted to stay away from that road. Mrs. Sutton and her client were in her office, the closed-in garage. I didn’t feel too comfortable with the idea of raising Sean in a home where fortune-telling was going on, but it was better than the alternative. Surely that wasn’t what made Andy go wrong. I’d keep Sean away from it as much as possible, away from that garage-office. That was the only place in the house that felt unsafe to me. It always had. Again, I wished I still smoked. I shut out the traffic and let myself be soothed by the trees, the breeze. Mrs. Sutton needed me around this house. I could help out, make myself useful. The landscaping, for instance. There were the pine trees and the line of old fashioned azaleas on the property line, that was it. The bushes around the house itself had two years ago gotten old and straggly, and she had had them taken out. But she hadn’t replaced them with anything. The holes had smoothed over with dirt and old bits of pine bark mulch, waiting for new plants, new life. I planned it out while I waited: some fringe flower bushes, some boxwoods in their natural round shape, some smaller azaleas. Perhaps some hostas around the tree trunks, and day lilies. The yard, even as barren as it was, was neat as a pin, but I could make it cheerful, pretty. Maybe it could soften her crusty personality. I could make myself belong, and she’d have to keep me around. When the client came out, she was an older lady, in what was probably her church dress, her stockings rolled down around her ankles, down onto the top of her sensible shoes. She shut the door behind her, muttering, and muttered with her head down all the

50 way to her car, not even noticing me watching. She did a three-point turn and pulled out in a cloud of dust and rattle of gravel. Bad news, apparently. I wondered what Mrs. Sutton had told her, that could possibly tick off a little old lady like that. Probably something to do with her children. She opened the front door behind me. “What are doing out here in this heat? Come inside.” She walked back into the den and left me to follow. I considered how to bring up my plan. “Sit here.” She pointed to the couch and sat in her old blue recliner, leaving the matching one, Mr. Sutton’s, as conspicuously empty as it had been for years. “Are you going to move back in with that woman?” She caught me off guard. “That woman is my mother.” “I know.” She stared at me hard, still in a mood from her session of spiritual counseling, trying to poke holes in my brain. I could feel it. “No. I’m not going back to Milton.” She nodded. She turned on the television to the game show channel, the clapping and cheering and noise effects getting badly on my nerves. I could hear Sean moving around in the back of the house. He came down the hall bleary-eyed and crawled up in my lap. “What kind of ice cream you want?” she asked. Sean was still mostly asleep and didn’t answer. Pearl changed to the cartoon channel and began getting out of the recliner. “I promised him some ice cream if he took a good, long nap.” She patted him on the knee as she went by. “I got chocolate and berry supreme. I know what he wants. What do you want?” A most penetrating, insightful question. For the long term, who knew? Or did she mean the short term? And I thought then that it didn’t matter what I wanted, not at that juncture in my life. Too many things were out of my hands. She brought me a scoop of each flavor, in a bowl with a blue flowered border. Still the Corelle just like my Mom had. “Come here,” she said and walked to the back of the house. I followed. We left our bowls of ice cream on the end table and Sean watching green and red monsters playing laser tag.

51 She took me to Andy’s old room, across the hall from hers. “This could all be cleaned out and put in storage,” she said. “So could this.” She walked back to the smaller room across from the guest bath. “I don’t ever sew anymore. I don’t need this stuff.” I’d expected to have to beg, or at least be the one to bring it up. And can you believe that just for a few minutes, I felt like resisting, refusing. I didn’t want her using her mind control techniques on me. “You could paint it if you don’t like this green.” Reading my thoughts again. I felt invaded. “Sean, baby,” she walked back to the den and plopped back onto the recliner. “What color do you want your room?” “My room is blue,” he said. I’d told him we were probably going to have to move, but it wasn’t clear if he understood. “No,” Mrs. Sutton said, “your room here. If I was to give you that first bedroom there, what color would you want it?” He’d spent the night here a number of times over the years, and slept in that very room, so it wasn’t clear if he understood what she meant. He looked at me. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. “Blue!” he said, with a tone that conveyed both that it was the greatest color in the world and a bit of scorn that we hadn’t known that. And then I was struck with an incredible jolt of fatigue. Things were going to work out. We wouldn’t be on the street or on welfare, or worse, Milton. “I’ll get a job, of course.” “Not going to be that easy.” Of course she’d burst my bubble. “Maybe start with part-time. I can keep Sean in the mornings while you work, and then see my clients in the afternoons.” “But don’t you have morning appointments, too?” I had been worried about the cost of daycare, but this didn’t seem like it would help. “I won’t make any more appointments in the mornings. I’ve been thinking about cutting back anyway. Your ice cream is melting.” She picked her bowl up. I didn’t want to accept too much charity, or obligation. “I can be your secretary, then, and answer the phone.”

52 She watched the monsters for a while. “Deal. Eat your ice cream.” She’d gotten both flavors for herself, too. “And,” she pointed at me with the spoon. “Call me Pearl.” I tried it in my mind a few times. It wouldn’t be easy.

The news from Fitzpatrick’s office wasn’t good. There wasn’t a bed for Andy in Sinclair, the closest medium/minimum security facility. He’d have to go to some podunk place three and a half hours away, at least at first. Then he could be transferred if something opened up in Sinclair. It was either that, or put him temporarily in a maximum security place, which would be horrible, just horrible. The transfer was going to happen later today. What was the goddamned hurry? Andy still looked tired, older around the eyes. Jail life was not agreeing with him. But he should have thought of that. He should have thought of us. We hugged, long and hard, and it was so nice to have that touch again. But the guard was there. We sat on either side of the table. I gave Andy the pictures I’d brought, which I’d put in pretty wooden frames, but the big guard took the frames off. So they were just snapshots, of Sean, me and Sean, all three of us together. I’d thought about including one of us in front of our house, but then I decided that would be mean. He set the pile of photos in front of him. I asked him if he wanted me to bring him anything else. “I can’t think of anything.” “Andy, I can run go get you anything you want, but time’s running out.” “I know.” He was resigned. He didn’t know much more about this place he was being taken than I did. He needed a haircut, and he’d probably get one. A drastic one. I said, “Your mother is coming to see you this afternoon.” He brightened up. “Really?” He traced his finger around the scratches in the table. “I think she’s really mad about all this.” That stunned me. He was worried about her being mad. “We’re all going to be roommates, now. I’m going to help her out.” “Oh? You’re not going back to Milton? Good. That’ll be good, then.” He stared out the window, thinking pretty much about his own future, his own fate. Focused on himself. I ran out of things to start another bit of conversation, and I sure didn’t want to

53 bring up the fact that I still hadn’t been to the shop, still hadn’t called the bank. Still hadn’t straightened out his mess. And the longer I sat there, the more anger started creeping into me. I still wanted, still needed to know exactly what he’d done, and I wanted him to be the one to tell me. He owed me that. An explanation. It didn’t look like I was going to get one. We hugged again when our little meeting ended, and he kissed me full on the lips with that guard standing right there watching. I bet he saw a lot of that kind of thing. And then I thought of something else. At some point, I bet I would be expected to provide a conjugal visit. To do it with him, right there in prison. Good Lord. When we parted, it was like he couldn’t let go of my hand. On the way out of the building, I caught sight of Jeff across the room. He waved, and I waved back.

Later that night, after Mrs. Sutton had suggested she keep Sean overnight and the next day too, I went home, to my house, which was almost not mine anymore, the mobile home, to organize and pack. I’d called the bank that afternoon. In two weeks they’d come and get it, take it back. They’d back their big rig trailer right over my African Irises and take my home away. And a good percentage of what was in it. Pearl had suggested putting most of the rest of our stuff, at least what wouldn’t be going to her house, in storage “for the future,” but I needed the money. I’d have a yard sale, at Pearl’s, because even the land wouldn’t be mine anymore. Of course, it never had been. It was Andy’s. Or the bank’s. Whatever. Our bedroom set we’d bought ourselves at Haverty’s, and I wanted that with me. I didn’t know how we’d move that heavy furniture to her house, or even the boxes of things for the yard sale, but Pearl said she’d take care of it. So I just started packing. I put together the broken-down boxes I’d grabbed from the back of the dollar store and packed them full of clothes—mine, Sean’s, and Andy’s. I folded his clothes slowly, his scent still on them. Widows often slept with an old shirt that had belonged to their dead husbands, but Andy wasn’t dead. He was in jail. Correction: prison, by now. I didn’t want to feel that longing.

54 I packed knick-knacks, toys Sean had outgrown and ones he hadn’t, DVD’s, books. There were shelves full of books, which Andy and I had gone to Sinclair for regularly, and spent hours browsing the shelves to add to our collection. His video games and equipment—Sean wasn’t anywhere near old enough for that. I’d keep the computer. The small television and DVR. In the kitchen, I boxed up the heavy, quality stainless steel pots and pans, the Pfaltzgraff dinnerware, the Mikasa silverware. There was so much, too many expensive things, and when we had collected them, it was with love and excitement and a sense of building our lives together. I’d never thought there would be a problem. Now I’d sell them. Each and every one reminded me of happiness and coziness and security. So many memories. But I’d have to sell them. I worked late into the night, since I wouldn’t sleep anyway. Just me and that owl.

55 THE EIGHT OF CUPS

Chapter 5

So there we were, on our first night after the move, all three of us having dinner together in our new incarnation of a family—me, Pearl, and Sean. Pearl wouldn’t let me help with dinner, directing me to play with my son while she fixed the roast beef, the potatoes and carrots, the green beans, and all the old fashioned way, with a chunk of fatback in the beans. I knew I was going to have to learn to deal with her bossy stubbornness. Sean and I played with his battery-operated dune buggies, sending them around and around the plastic track. Being a boy, he liked it best when they crashed or ran off into the leg of the coffee table. Pearl called us to the table in her kitchen, having set it with the usual blue Corelle. Maybe we could use some of my dinnerware. Probably not the time yet to mention it, though. Sean sat on encyclopedias rather than the booster seat he’d used at home. I began cutting him some of my roast beef in small squares, like he liked it, but Pearl brought his plate to the table with his meat already cut. “That’s okay, I got it.” “Pearl,” I said. “If this is going to work, we’re going to have to share the kitchen.” “Oh, don’t worry about it. You just relax. It’s been so long since I had somebody to wait on, it makes me feel good.” It made me feel useless to be waited on. But I could feel that what she wanted was for us to fill the absence. Old Mr. Sutton was gone, everywhere you looked. For example, in the way she randomly scattered the house with pictures of him. He appeared in a grouping of framed photos on top of the television in the various stages of his life: as a young groom, as a young father, with Andy and Pearl when Andy graduated from tech school and from high school. And in the hall, a large, impressively and expensively framed photo of Mr. Sutton in his Army uniform. He looked twenty-something, proud, distant, even haughty. I liked that picture least of all. The other shots made him seem more fun and relaxed and friendly, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he smiled for the camera.

56 And Pearl smiled in those old pictures, too, her face showing one dimple on the right that I’d never seen in real life. So I said, “This is good, real tender.” She looked down at the roast beef on her plate and smiled, not enough to show her dimple. “The secret is to use the crock pot. The oven makes it too dry. This is the way Earl liked it, too.” And Andy, I knew. He’d shown me the crock pot secret. It suddenly occurred to me that since the courtroom, she hadn’t mentioned Andy or any of what was going on. When it had come up, I had brought it up. For example, when she got the people who did her lawn to move my bedroom set over here, along with our clothes and all the stuff for the yard sale. I had been floored to open my door to find Hector there, and to recognize him as the older Mexican at the shop, the one I’d assumed was in charge that day and had said Andy’s name with sarcasm. The very person I was sure had betrayed Andy in some way and put him where he was. Jeff had almost said as much. “Mrs. Sutton,” Hector had said, holding his Braves cap in his hands, ready to work in the South Georgia sun. “Nice to see you today.” “You!” I said. Very original. It was all I could think of other than curse words. “What do you want?” “Ms. Pearl said you needed help moving.” “She said I needed your help?” “Yes.” He looked truly confused. Well, Pearl was footing the bill for this. I’d take care of her later. I showed him what was going and what wasn’t, and he trucked two or three other men through the house all afternoon to get the job done. It wouldn’t have taken so long if they’d had a proper size pickup truck instead of a small one. Why wasn’t he in jail? I’d gotten to Pearl’s just as they were finishing and getting ready to leave. I went back to Andy’s room, my new room, and rearranged it the way I wanted it, with the bed under the window and the dresser close to the closet. When they left and Pearl was forking her roast beef onto the platter, I marched into the kitchen ready to give her a piece of my mind. “What the hell?” I said it softly so Sean wouldn’t hear it over the cartoons.

57 “Excuse me?” She looked at me hard. This was not a family used to cursing out their feelings. “Hector?” “What’s wrong with him?” “How could you?” “What is the matter with you?” Would she betray Andy too? “Did you not know that he turned state’s evidence?” “No,” she said, reaching into a high cabinet and pulling down a serving bowl for the vegetables. “Are you sure? I don’t think Hector is the one who did that. Or if he did, he was forced into it.” “That’s no excuse. He should be deported.” She took the bowl to the table and set it down hard. “Do you know what you’re talking about? Do you actually know what happened, or have you just jumped to conclusions? That would be understandable, in the circumstances.” “I didn’t. . . I don’t. . . No. He betrayed your son.” “Do you think so? Why do you think I continue to hire him? Don’t you trust me?” Psychic-shmychic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and I grabbed the newspaper and took it back to my room for yet another want-ad search. I needed a job. For the first time since she and I had struck our deal, I wasn’t sure I had done the right thing. What had I gotten us into, me and Sean? She let me stew for about a half-hour. Then she sent Sean to tell me dinner was ready. I decided I’d better bite my tongue and swallow my gut feelings for the time being. We were in her house, for the time being. I apologized to her for getting upset. She nodded once. “Did Sean wash his hands?” Sean started whining, with the Charlie Brown mouth. “I don’t want to wash my hands. I didn’t go outside.” “Sean,” I said, in a tone, “wash your hands. Now.” He whined and poked his lip out, dropping his head and sagging his shoulders like an old man with the weight of the world. “Now.” Pearl said, “Listen to your mother.”

58 He whined all the way back to the bathroom, and stayed there several minutes, long enough to get over whatever had been up his britches. I’d have to check the bathroom after dinner to see how much of a mess he’d made.

It took forever to organize the shop. Who knows how many cops had invaded, turning everything upside down and inside out. Pearl had decided that she would pay for the financial consultant to handle the business end. “That shop was Earl’s pride and joy. I must see to it that it gets untangled, for Earl’s sake.” She probably thought I couldn’t handle it by myself. I had decided that I’d show her. Not only would I find all those papers Andy had told me about, unless they’d been confiscated, I would then clean and straighten and make the shop look halfway presentable. For Mr. Sutton’s sake. As soon as I unlocked the main door I saw the car parts and tools and papers scattered everywhere where the cops had torn the place up. The cleaning was going to have to come first. Before I could organize the disaster zone, I would get some clean light coming through the plate glass, and some clean countertops and floors to make piles on. I’d make it like one of those shows where somebody’s living room was a total mess and a professional organizer came in like a commando and got it all under control. I’d be that professional. This was a plan. This was constructive action. I looked in every closet I could locate, but all I found was an ancient string mop and an almost-empty jar of Pine-Sol. Both were covered in about an inch of grimy dust. So I locked the door back up and went to Dollar General. I got Windex and more Pine- Sol, a heavy-duty sponge mop, rags, buckets. Boxes for sorting all that stuff that had been thrown around. Oh, and an application for a job. I’d been asking for applications anyplace I went, because the want-ads in the paper weren’t much help. The clerk as I was checking out looked me up and down and said they didn’t need anybody right then, but I could have an application anyway. Did I have any experience running a register or doing inventory or checking stock? She actually waited for an answer, her too-long, striped metallic fingernails tapping the checkout codes and looking at me like she couldn’t decide if I would belong. I was glad she couldn’t see the balance in my checking account as I finished entering the

59 debit card numbers. She was still waiting for me to say whether I’d had any experience. She looked about sixteen. “Not yet,” I said. I filled out the application, my prior experience consisting of only the one high- school job washing hair at the salon, and no address or phone for the reference. I went ahead and listed full-time mother and homemaker, too, under work history. On talk shows, they always reassure the woman that she’s learning all kinds of skills and doing the most useful job on this earth to stay at home and raise her child. But the truth is, nobody cares about that in the real world, not even at Dollar General. When I took the application back I asked the clerk on duty, a string-bean of a boy who looked about twelve, to point me to the manager. He walked me to an office in the back, where a middle-aged man sat poring over some computerized list. He took my application and said “thank you, we’ll call if something comes up” without even looking up from his list. I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

It took over a week’s worth of mornings to get the place halfway decent, and by that I mean just the lobby and the two offices. The longer I worked, the less useful the whole enterprise seemed to be. I wasn’t going to touch the mechanic areas. After I got some order and light in there then I began the sorting. On the television shows, the piles are keep, trash, and donate. But I very quickly realized I had no idea what could be trashed as far as paperwork. So my piles were trash (broken mugs, used post-its, etc.), paperwork, miscellaneous. Andy could sort it all out when and if he ever came back. I sat in his office, trying to figure out what would have ever made him agree to Craig’s plans. What about running a tire shop would lead one into a life of petty crime, enough to get you in a state prison, but not enough to make the local little paper. There were receipts, there were inventory lists, catalogs, warranty sheets. The usual. There weren’t going to be any answers here. There was, however, a pink post-it taped to his computer screen with a phone number and an email address. All the other post-its attached to surfaces all over the office, in various states of cleanliness, variously creased, were the usual yellow. This one was centered nicely, uncreased, and clean. I picked up the phone and called the number,

60 which was a cell phone judging by its prefix. A chipper female voice said, “You’ve reached my number—ha! Leave me a message.” The voice sounded familiar to me. And then I flashed back to that last moment in the courtroom, when I’d caught sight of the woman who looked like Linda. Was this number Linda’s? Had she actually been at the arraignment? Why? This was just getting more and more complicated. What a tangled web he weaves, etc. Was the number some other woman’s? That would be even worse. I folded the post-it and put it in my wallet. I continued sorting and realized what wasn’t here that was supposed to be—all the papers and receipts regarding the house and things around the house. The paperwork that Andy had said would be here. They must have taken it. Evidence for motive. I wanted to be able to sit down and figure it all out myself, to get out the calculator and make the numbers talk to me, but it was gone, confiscated. Another thing they’d have and I wouldn’t. My level of frustration was pretty high, then, when I heard a knock on the glass of the front door and a “Yoo-hoo?” Startle. Fear. Was this one of Andy’s gangsters who’d been out of town and didn’t know what had gone down? Was there something hidden here I hadn’t found yet that could get me beat up or worse because I didn’t know where it was? Or even just somebody who’d come to get his last paycheck, which of course I didn’t have? I cursed myself for not locking that front door, for not locking myself safely inside. “Can I come in?” My heart was racing. I was trapped in the back office, with no way out except to go by this person I could hear coming slowly down the hall. A person who knew I was in there. Who would’ve known, of course, if he’d been watching my routine these past few days. “Meredith.” It was Jeff. He came into the office. “I saw your car out there. Is everything all right?” I was relieved and angry at the same time. What did he want? “No, everything is not all right. You people took stuff I need to balance the books.” He hooked his hands in that big belt. “Sorry about that. We had to take anything that was relevant.” He shifted his weight onto one foot and adjusted some of his

61 equipment on his belt. Those things must be pretty heavy and uncomfortable. “How are you holding up?” I straightened the pile of papers in front of me. “I’m fine. Getting better every day.” “I haven’t seen you in a while.” Not since they’d taken Andy away. I felt a little defensive. “Got a lot to do. I had to move, I’m looking for a job. Trying to straighten all this out.” I swept my hand around the room. “You people leave a mess behind, don’t you?” “Where’d you move to?” “With my mother-in-law.” He laughed, too. “Oh, wow.” He probably knew who she was, Sister Pearl. “Yeah, wow.” For a minute he stood nodding, at attention now, feet apart, knees straight. “If you need anything, you just let me know.” Jeff, the friend from high school now. That was comforting. “I’ve seen a lot of these types of situations.” The police officer now. That was not comforting. “You know,” he said, beginning to backtrack out of the room, “we Mill-Town survivors got to stick together, right?” I nodded. I considered telling him, sort of as a joke but sort of in earnest, that he ought to help me clean all that mess up. I doubt he’d offer to do that, though. That would undermine their authority.

In my hand was a dusting cloth again, but this time, before me was Pearl’s office. I’d saved this room for last, delaying the inevitable. This would be my first time inside the room at all. The room where all the sorcery took place. It was easy enough in the rest of the house to ignore it, because there really weren’t any signs of it anywhere else, other than the appointment book on the kitchen counter next to the phone. I just blocked it out of my mind when I talked to them. I didn’t have to think about why they wanted to come see “Miss Pearl” or “Sister Pearl.” All I had to do was write a name in the book beside a time, or if they didn’t want to leave a name, then just write “client” and block in the

62 space, thirty minutes or an hour. I could answer the phone in another part of the house so I wouldn’t hear them through the kitchen wall. The door was still the same carport-type door that was probably original to the house, before the garage had been closed in. The metal mini blinds clanged when I opened the door. I left it open and walked down the three brick steps to the carpeted floor. The room looked surprisingly normal, like Pearl herself. And by that, I mean there wasn’t a round table covered in red velvet and stars, or a bead curtain, or candles everywhere. It was almost business-like. A regular wooden desk with a worn top, and drawers on either side. I’d leave the drawers alone, but as I dusted the desktop, I dusted carefully around the deck of tarot cards in its worn cardboard box. God help me, in the bright light of day I swear to you I did not really believe in spirits and demons and things like that, but it was dim in there with no light on and the dark paneling and bricks on the walls. I wasn’t sure anybody else was allowed to touch the cards anyway. Things squeaked and moved in the shadows, and I jumped, then felt silly, superstitious. But I hurried. I felt watched. The two chairs on the other side of the desk were business-like, too, except for the extra chair against the far wall, which was a green lawn chair. Bookshelves along the brick wall under the high, long windows held a variety of books: on tarot, prophecy, Edgar Cayce, and several versions of the Bible. A plastic laundry basket held toys: trucks, Barbie dolls, children’s books. Clients brought kids, apparently. The blinds in the windows were closed and one large, loud boxy air conditioner took up most of the space of one window. The air had that particular chill put out by that kind of machine, but I also knew that ghosts and spirits were supposed to make the temperature drop, too. I could practically see my breath. There was simple wooden door to the outside, and on either side, prints of Jesus and angels hovering in the air over cows and shepherds and a woman in front of a well. Two rows of shelves high on the other side wall held fancy dolls—not play toys. I hadn’t known Pearl collected dolls. The porcelain faces shone and the eyes, of various colors, stared vacantly out the window even though the blinds were closed. Frilly dresses with lace. Maybe they were what had been watching. I could almost hear them laughing and giggling like the sound effects from a horror movie, like Amityville or something.

63 That room was haunted. People came there when their lives were a mess and they needed to know something, full of yearning and desperation and vulnerability and deep questions. Who knows where the answers came from? What if my mother and the sweaty preacher were right? What if it was the devil who told Pearl what to say, and she didn’t even know it? Because as difficult a woman as she could be, I never once thought she’d be in league with the forces of evil. And I never once thought she was a fraud or charlatan. So I wasn’t sure, then, what she was. The phone rang as I wiped the last shelf and I swear I heard a hiss in the room. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, to catch the phone, and closed the door behind me firmly, telling any spirits that might be in there to stay there. I commanded them like dogs, the hounds of hell, my heart racing. Stay. I’d hoped the phone call would be about a job, on account of all the applications I’d been putting in all over town. But it was another client, who wanted to see Pearl that very afternoon, if at all possible. It was possible; there was only one other appointment written in the book. I said a brief prayer for that poor lady. I hoped she knew what she might be playing with.

It was Pearl who saw the ad in the newspaper for a new beauty salon that wasn’t in the phone book yet. She plopped the folded page in front of me at the breakfast table. “I didn’t know about this one,” she said and shrugged, walking away to the sink. “You should try it,” she practically commanded me. Love’s Day Spa “on Love Avenue.” I though the name was kind of dumb, a blatant pun, but the ad itself looked classy, with cursive lettering and two Greek columns. I had a good feeling about it. I told myself that feeling was not because a psychic had recommended it to me. The salon was indeed on Love Avenue, in a little old Craftsman-style house between a lawyer’s office and a music store. It was quaint, painted a vivid dark blue with a very neat flowerbed around the printed sign. Several cars lined up to the side of the white gravel driveway. Bells jingled on the door. And immediately I got a very good feeling. It was a young place, decorated with flair and care and enthusiasm. And it was mild chaos.

64 No one was behind the counter, which also served as a display case with cosmetics and jewelry for sale. The cash register sat unattended, the appointment book open with its pages bent at the corners, the register itself so old-fashioned it had to be deliberate. Beyond the counter was a small room painted dark brown, fashionably, with animal print curtains and the first stylist’s chair. A very small, very skinny brunette, probably in her thirties, chopped hair furiously while listening and nodding as the client chatted. I heard a hair dryer from the room off to my left, and more conversation from down the hall to my right. I wanted to get my bearings for a moment. I sat in the living room-turned-waiting room, in a very comfortable side chair with large colored polka dots, beside a lime green couch, where two teenagers waited their turns, looking excitedly through the magazines and books from the glass coffee table, which sat on a lime green area rug, extra-long shag. This room had a very bright theme, whereas the room beyond was going for safari class. I would never in a million years decorate my home this way, but for a salon, it was fun. It made me smile. It made me want to wear glitter nail polish again. I could see the business sense in it. “Be with you in a sec,” the brunette called to me, still nodding and saying, “I know what you mean” and “tell me about it” every now and then. The ferocity and speed of her chopping worried me, but by the time she’d blown the client dry and styled her a bit with a huge curling iron, I was impressed. I’d learned enough at Marjorie’s salon back in Milton to know a good cut when I saw one. “How does it look?” the brunette asked. “God, it just feels so much better. I love it!” The client shook her hair and ran her hands through it. She was genuinely pleased. “And thanks again,” she said, “for listening to me bitch and groan.” “Ha! At least somebody gets to get out and live a little. Your life should be a movie. Six weeks?” They were at the counter now, the stylist having to ring up her total and write down the next appointment. Then the phone rang, and she answered it, flipping pages and writing another appointment down. I could hear a man’s and a woman’s laughter from the next room now. Laughing hard enough to split their pants.

65 “We try to keep our customers entertained around here,” the brunette said to me. “What can I do for you today? Cut? Manicure? Facial? We do it all here.” I looked at the teenagers. “Are y’all next?” I didn’t want an audience. But they shook their heads. “They’re waiting on Renee for . . . manicures, right?” I walked up to her at the counter, trying to seem cool, not nervous or desperate. “Are you guys new here in Ballard?” “God, new to Ballard? No. But the salon has been here for close to four months. So, yes. I’m Tammy, the owner.” We shook hands. I said nice to meet you and told her my name. Forget Dollar General and all those discount shops and convenience stores. I wanted to work here like I hadn’t wanted anything in a long time. I figured if I didn’t come right out and ask, then I’d lose my nerve. “I’m looking for a part-time job. I have prior experience in a salon over in Milton.” “Well, we only have two chairs here, plus one room for the manicures and the back room is for the facials.” “No,” I said, “I’m not a stylist. I ran the front counter and shampooed the customers’ hair, swept up, that kind of thing. Oh, plus, I learned how to give the kind of shampoo where you massage the scalp. The customers loved it.” She looked at me through a squint. “Well, we’re not always this busy. It comes and goes.” “And now, I’ve learned how to keep books. I could help keep the books.” At that, she raised her eyebrows and leaned forward onto her elbows. “Part-time, you say?” I nodded. “Show me the scalp massage.” She led me into the hall and then into a room that surely had been the house’s bathroom at some point. Long and narrow, wallpapered in silver squares, the room now held two shampoo stations. She climbed into a chair, took off her earrings, and waited. This was an audition, I knew. I hoped the old habits would come back to me. I reclined the top of the chair, ran the water through the nozzle against the side of the sink until it was the right temperature, slightly warmer than lukewarm. I wet her hair and pumped the shampoo into my hand. This was all like second nature, even after four-

66 something years. As I shampooed and massaged, she lay there silent, with her eyes closed. I concentrated on the massage points, in order. Then I rinsed, gently so as not to undo the relaxation, wrapped a towel around her hair and said “Okay.” I helped her sit up. She looked at me, squinting again. “Just a minute. Hey, Renee, can you come in here a minute?” A spiky-haired blonde with red highlights stuck her head in the door. “What?” “Let her wash your hair.” Renee looked at me, then back at the owner. “Do what?” “I’ll fix it back for you, just let her wash it.” Renee looked at me again, as if to ask if I really wanted to do that. She asked me, “Is she crazy?” Tammy said, “Seriously. She wants to work here, so see what you think.” “Fine.” She turned back toward the opposite room and said, “Y’all pick your colors.” So I washed her hair, too, massaging the same way, thankful that old Marjorie had gone to that workshop in Atlanta she’d complained about so much. When I finished Renee and sat her back up, Tammy said, “Well?” “Jesus. Hire her.” “We should ask Trent.” “Nah, he won’t care. It probably wouldn’t work on him anyway.” She stood up and took the towel off her hair, which when wet, looked only a bit darker and spiked down instead of up. She had a thin chain of flowers tattooed on her left ankle. She started back out the door. “Hey!” Tammy said. “Don’t you want me to fix your hair back? I said I would.” “You owe me. You just remember that.” Then from across the hall, I could hear her customers complimenting her hair. “Oh, have a seat,” she told them. “Stick your hands in here.” Tammy was still sitting in her chair in front of the sink. “We’ll have to start at minimum wage for a while. See how things go. That all right?” I nodded. She dropped the towel off her head by dropping her head toward her chest. A quick, pro motion. She

67 shook her head almost like an animal. Like the curtains in her room. “Mornings or afternoons?” “Mornings, please. I have another job in the afternoons.” “Mornings are mostly the older ladies.” “My specialty.” We shook hands, and I was happier than I’d been in a long time.

Chapter 6

“Meredith, can you come in here and assist me?” Pearl said this to me with a client sitting right there. So I had to go. “This is Meredith,” she told the client, an older woman, probably in her seventies, and of course in her church best. “She’s learning the ropes around here.” I wanted to protest that. But Pearl said, “Come stand right here behind me. Mrs. Louise is a new client.” “But if the phone . . .” “Let it ring, sweetheart.” She had that dozy tone she used when a session began. Lulling the client to listen, listen. She told the woman to place her right hand on the desk, palm down. She shuffled the cards, gazing at the back of the hand. She lay down five cards in a fan around the woman’s fingers. I didn’t want to be here for this. Jesus and the angels stared at me from across the room. The dolls mocked me. “Hm. There used to be a man, blonde at first and then bald.” “Yes,” the woman said, “my George.” “He worked with his hands, a craftsman, a tradesman, proud of it.” “Oh, yes.” “Think about any questions you have for me.” Pearl lay down more cards in a wider circle around the first one, sometimes stopping to study a card before putting it down, sometimes laying a card on top of another one. “I’ve got the best recipe for beef stew with black beans.” “What?” the woman said.

68 “Black beans, can you believe it? My dear departed husband brought me the recipe from overseas. He used to be in the Army. He was so handsome in his uniform. That’s his picture over there on the shelf. He used to cook the stew himself. I do believe his tasted better than mine. My beans tend to get a little mushy. These days, I have to cut back on the salt. You need to relax, dear, and let me do this.” The woman said, “Oh.” Pearl kept putting cards in concentric circles around her hand until it took up the entire depth of the desk and used the whole deck. It took a long time, the wall clock buzzing loudly, the traffic on the highway roaring past. I didn’t hear any misplaced hissing or squeaking. The room felt normal with Pearl in here. “Your son does indeed have some plans on his mind, Louise. Thinking about going astray. You better talk to him, tell him to get his head on straight before he ruins everything.” I looked at Pearl. She looked at the cards, tapping one in particular. “Now, about that other matter. You should. You should get out and enjoy yourself while you still got your health, honey.” “But my son doesn’t want me to get remarried at this time in my life.” “No,” Pearl said with a droll tone. “I expect he wouldn’t. But that’s about money, not about you having just a little bit of fun. Grab a cup of coffee, maybe dinner. Your son wouldn’t mind that. He would understand that, wouldn’t he?” “His wife is a bit difficult.” “Lots of us are, dear, that doesn’t mean he ought to run around like a monkey. I can see what he’s thinking. It’s right here.” She tapped the card again. “And what you’re thinking,” she tapped one on the opposite side of the arc, “is that you’re a little bit scared of some attention, right? You’re worried about what you ought to do. That’s not bad, to be worried about what is the right thing to do, is it Meredith?” She turned to me so fast I couldn’t even react, just stood there dazzled by the array of cards. “No,” she picked back up. “That’s not bad.” Her tone of voice was getting hard now, like a judge in a courtroom. “But what you’re thinking is not what your son is thinking, is it? He’s taking it too far. He wants it all and the pudding, too. He needs to decide where to draw the line.” Pearl was boring holes into the woman with her eyes. The woman seemed punched

69 by the intensity. She sat back, moved her hand carefully out of position. It left a shadow of condensation, like breath on a cold window. I squirmed inside, uneasy to have witnessed this psychic reading. I was learning entirely too much about this woman and her errant son. What would he be, like fifty? This was none of my business. And presumptuous anyway. Pearl was giving advice like a therapist. Based on cards, which were either of the devil, or, as I felt then in that room, simple pieces of card stock paper. Pearl had sounded like she was talking about her own life. The phone rang in the kitchen, and I excused myself to answer it. Then I stayed in the kitchen, with no intention of going back in there. Pearl and the lady wrapped up the session with more talk in the same vein, Pearl pointing out particular cards and going into the lady’s past, telling her what she already knew. “So,” Pearl said, her voice back to dozy. “Did I give you a good reading? Did you like it?” “Oh, yes, you were right on target.” She paid and said she’d call again next month. Pearl came into the kitchen and shut the door, shaking her head. “Old bat,” she said. “Don’t do that again,” I said, “please.” “Don’t do what?” “Call me in there while you do that.” She looked at me like I was a failure.

I was organizing the salon’s reception area, my education from television and from recent events once again coming in very handy. Things were as cluttered as you’d expect them to be, in a place where three different people whoosh in, finish out their clients’ business, then whoosh back away again. Tammy had been right, though. The place wasn’t always busy. Like now, in midmorning of my first day, there was a lull. The next appointment wasn’t until after lunch. Tammy stuck her head through the archway and said, “Hey, let’s take a break. Come on. We can call it a meeting if we have to.”

70 Everybody gathered in the kitchen of the old house, an old-fashioned kitchen with a round table and chairs. But the appliances had been updated to sleek black, including the microwave, and the cabinet doors had been removed, the remaining shelves painted to look like chrome. The walls were a steely blue, and the curtains at the window over the sink were actually black lace. It seemed that everywhere I looked in this place, there was some whimsical, creative touch. A seriousness with a bit of humor, too, and an edge. I wondered if Pearl would let me do something like this to my bedroom. That might be an interesting test of my sway in that household. “There’s a coffeemaker over there,” Tammy pointed as she walked around to the furthest chair, “and mugs above it, there. Help yourself.” Trent said, “I brought these bear claws.” Trent looked like he was maybe five years older than Andy, maybe early thirties. He used a lot of mud in his hair to make it swoop up nicely, and I think there were highlights in it. He wore a tiny diamond stud in his left ear. The first thing he’d said that morning when he introduced himself was, “I’m not gay.” I’d caught my breath in the act of wondering and not knowing what to say, so I just said “okay” and smiled. He did wear jeans and a rather nerdy plaid button-up shirt. Like metrosexual meets lumberjack. And it was not like I knew what to look for in gay men. It was not like it mattered, anyway. Odd that I was maybe a little disappointed. Everything around the place seemed so exotic. When he’d shown me how he wanted his appointments to be scheduled, he caught me looking at a ring on his wedding finger. “Divorced,” he’d said, looking back at the appointment book quickly. Then he looked back up. “You?” I looked at my little band of gold and was not exactly surprised to hear myself say that I hadn’t decided yet. He’d nodded. Now he put a bear claw on a little paper plate and pushed it over to me as I sat down. I’d gotten a bit of coffee just to join in. “No, thanks. My mother-in-law makes me eat too much.” Pearl, in addition to the fascination with ice cream, had started baking. And still hadn’t let me cook in her kitchen. Tammy said, “you could use a pastry or two.” “Yeah,” said Renee, taking a good size bite out of hers.

71 So again, to join in, I took a little bite. My appetite just hadn’t been right everything had hit the fan. But I did not want to talk about that here. I wished I hadn’t brought up Pearl. This was supposed to be my break from all that. Renee said, “Hey, y’all, have you seen the new nail colors in the catalog? Like fall leaves. Brown, orange.” “Sounds like the seventies,” Trent said. “Yeah, but with a metallic sheen. Hideous.” Tammy laughed. “But you ordered them.” “Yeah. Should be here day after next. I’m going to show them all on my nails at one time, maybe stripes. Or a different color on each nail, like I did in the spring. It’s good advertisement,” she said to me. “They like it better on you than when they look at the bottle.” “So,” Trent said, “is that why you striped your hair that time? You should’ve seen it, Meredith. She had blue, purple, red, black, orange.” “Yeah,” Renee nodded. “Hideous.” “It was a good attention-getter, though,” Tammy said. “And persuasive. Seemed like a lot of people tried colors they wouldn’t have normally gone for.” She chewed on her thumbnail, bouncing a little as she sat on one foot and bounced the other underneath the table. Renee poked Tammy’s shoulder. “Down, girl. How long’s it been?” Tammy sighed. “Two weeks.” The others looked at her. “Cold turkey, not one cigarette.” Trent raised an eyebrow. “Okay, one yesterday.” She scratched a spot in her head vigorously. I had to smile. I’d quit when I was pregnant, and that’s why I’d quit. It must be really hard to do it just to do it. These people were going to be an interesting influence on me. I felt so energetic around them. After four years of nothing but staying home running after a kid and worrying about pleasing my man, I was ready to think about myself again. I’d kept in style, sure, although I’d grown out my hair all one length just for time’s sake. Andy had liked to take me shopping, though, for clothes and shoes and jewelry. Whip out his checkbook and his credit cards. I saw that now. A sign I should’ve looked out for. Because, what had that really been about? Making me look like a fashionista? Like

72 Linda? Well, to hell with what he would like. Maybe I’d let Tammy cut my hair in some style from one of those books. Let Renee have at my nails and toenails. Use my money for some new, trendy clothes from Cato or Lerner’s. It was something to think about. Something to look forward to.

I’d gone to the grocery store, even though it was afternoon and Pearl had clients scheduled. We were out of the ice cream, see, which had become a necessary ritual. “Just turn on the answering machine. No big deal,” Pearl had said. When I got back home, to Pearl’s that is, I saw an unfamiliar car parked beside the driveway. I drove around to the back door and parked beside the patio. The back door was noisy--you had to rattle the key in the lock a few times and then pull it out just a tad before you turned it. The plastic grocery bags were loud, too, making big crinkling noises when I brought the bags in and set them on the floor, and small crackling noises each time I reached in to pull something out. There was no way to avoid it. I heard them through the office door. Pearl said to the client, “Now this card. Don’t get upset. The Death card does not mean actual death.” She paused. “It means a big change, like the death of something old in your life and the beginning of something new. Does this make sense to you?” “Oh,” a middle-aged female voice said. “Well . . .” I opened the fridge, and the cold air whooshed out. Personally, I do not like change. Big change, especially. I’d had enough of it lately, thank you very much. When I walked over to the bag that had the milk in it, my foot scattered the pile of mail. Mixed in with the catalogs and the bills was a letter to me from Andy, from prison, on the stationery Pearl had taken him. I hadn’t thought of it. She knew, of course, exactly the style he’d like: burgundy marble pattern, very classy, with a big cursive S at the top for Sutton. The letter, printed in his slanted block script, said simply, “Dear Meredith, can you come out this Sunday? I know it’s a long drive and a lot to ask. Don’t worry about bringing Sean this time. I need to talk to you about something. Love, Andy.” I hadn’t wanted to drive all that way, had planned to put it off as long as I could. I didn’t have time. I had to work Saturday morning, and then I needed Sunday to come up

73 with something Sean could wear as a costume to Sunday school. Pearl hadn’t said a word about me not going to church, but she liked to take him and show him around to her old cronies. They were having Costume Day in the Tots class. Apparently, if you let them dress in costume from time to time, then when Halloween came around, it wasn’t any big deal. That was their theory, anyway. I didn’t have the first idea for that, yet. And I’d planned to think about it on Sunday. So what did Andy want to talk about now? Maybe this was it: he’d tell me what he should’ve told me from the beginning. I’d have to think about whether I was going to confront him about the post-it note in pink, the woman’s voice. Can you believe I lost that thing? When I’d gone to get it out of my wallet and decide whether to call again, it had been gone. Now, was that fate, carelessness? Or some Freudian thing? The post-it could’ve been nothing. I tossed the letter back to the floor with the bills. I took the milk and the lettuce and the other cold items to the fridge, where they belonged. I put the ice cream, mushy now, on the counter, and got out three bowls. It was time for Sean to wake up from his nap. As I was trying to pick spoons out of the drawer quietly, Pearl asked the client questions in a pointed tone of voice. This was something I’d noticed about her with her clients, that jabbing way of asking a question. “You know you must make this choice, don’t you?” Her voice became louder. “God has put this obstacle on you. You cannot not choose.” I heard soft sobbing and footsteps. I heard the door slam and then a car crank. I heard nothing from the office. She’d lose that client, I guessed. A paying client. And she didn’t have tons and tons to start with. I felt yet another change was looming on us. When I came back through the den with Sean in tow, Ma was lying on the couch with her arms and feet crossed and a folded rag on her forehead. I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say to her. She really couldn’t afford to lose any more clients. I finally just asked her if everything was all right. She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. “They never listen.” She closed her eyes again and sighed deeply. I stood in the door between the den and the kitchen. “You can tell them exactly what they need to hear, but they don’t want to hear it. Goes right out the other ear. Stubborn as mules.”

74 I offered her ice cream, but she didn’t want any. Sean said, “Grandma, ice cream always makes you feel better.” Of course he doesn’t get it.

This place had cinder block walls that had been painted so many times they were goopy, like ice cream when your freezer has unexpectedly gone out. They were gray, institutional gray, which made everybody’s skin look ashy. We had to talk to each other through smudged plexiglas and telephones. Andy would have to earn the privilege of face-to-face meetings where we could touch. His jumpsuit here had far more numbers on the front. The room’s back end, where I was, was lined with booths like mine, most of them containing wives, or whoever. The place buzzed with one-ended conversations and throbbed with unfulfilled yearnings. He wouldn’t get to why he’d asked me to come. He complained about the food, said it was hard and stale and cold, the same thing most every day. Mystery meat and string beans, white bread. He asked about Sean. I told him Pearl was teaching him to write the letters of his name. “Really?” Andy beamed with pride, then his face fell. “I wish I could be there to see that. They only let me put up three pictures, did I tell you that? And they told me where on the wall to put them, too. You practically can’t take a shit around here without asking their permission.” Andy rarely cursed. But maybe that would change, given the people he was hanging out with now. “Do you get to go outside?” “Right now, just two hours a day. That can change if I can get onto some of the work programs. But it’s like I got to prove myself first, prove I can be trusted.” He said this bitterly. “Andy, you said you wanted to talk to me about something.” “Meredith,” he began. His body was jumping up and down. He was bouncing his left knee, I know. He often couldn’t sit still. “I know this is not what you signed on for.” He scratched behind his left ear then switched the phone over to that side. What did he want me to say to that? I said, “It is what it is.”

75 “I’m just saying, I know you didn’t figure on it. And I know you’ve got to be angry about it.” I said nothing. He laughed. “You should’ve gone on to school. You were good at school, weren’t you? Always reading books. And then I come along and whisk you off to the big city.” He was being sarcastic. He hated Ballard, always wanted to go somewhere else, but then he had inherited the shop, the family business. “I’m just saying,” he continued, “that I have no right now to hold you back. If you want to move to Sinclair, or even someplace like Atlanta, I’d understand. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I’d understand.” He leaned forward to look into my eyes. So that was it, was it? He was willing to set me loose? So then was there even any point, really, to bringing up the pink post-it? I started to do it anyway, but then he said, “Do you remember that time we took the boat out on that pond? And it started raining? And we had that picnic basket that got soaked, and all the sandwiches got soaked.” He was staring over my head, lost in the memory. “Were they peanut butter and jelly?” “Chicken salad.” “Chicken salad, right. Went completely mushy. Absolutely inedible. We couldn’t eat that shit. We should’ve put them in plastic.” “We were out of plastic bags.” “So we just fed them to the ducks. Remember the ducks? There were some baby ones, too, so cute, all following their mama in a line.” I remembered, all right. The picnic lunch may have been ruined but it didn’t matter in the least because the day was lovely, like a picture. I’d deliberately worn a white dress and taken a big white umbrella. I’d told him to wear dockers and a polo, loafers with no socks. Right out of a movie. We’d laughed and laughed. And made love under a blanket on the bank of the pond. I remembered the way he felt. The way we felt, together. Yet another big guard came and tapped Andy on the shoulder, time was up. He took Andy by the elbow. Andy said, “Love ya’, babe.” I blew him a kiss as he was taken away from me yet again. I signed out, adding my time of departure in the column beside my time of arrival. I walked through the several sets of doors and halls and out into the

76 blinding sunlight. Hot. Hard to breathe, like a vise around your chest. It was so much easier to stay mad at him when I was away from him. I was just a weak girly-girl after all.

The Law Enforcement Center in Ballard called to tell me that I needed to come and pick up Andy’s “personal effects” they’d taken away from him when they arrested him. It was a big yellow envelope with his watch and wedding ring and wallet. They apologized for keeping it so long, said they should have returned it to me sooner. Whatever. In the parking lot, I saw Jeff walking around towards the front door, the Superior Court, his head hanging and a manila folder full of papers in his hand. I stopped and waited for him to get closer. “Well, hello,” he said with a warm smile. “How are you today?” I deliberately pushed out of my mind why I was here. We were just two friends from high school running into each other uptown. “Fine. You?” “Gotta give a statement. My favorite thing to do. Did you ever find a job?” “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.” I told him where the salon was. “You should stop by. We can do buzz cuts, too.” He smiled again and ran his hand over the burr of his hair. “Yeah, it’s getting a little long.” I thought I caught him glancing at the V-neck on my shirt. “I might do that sometime. Check the place out. It’s pretty new, isn’t it?” “Yeah, not even in the phone book yet.” I shifted my weight to the other foot, threw my hip out a little bit. The things people do when they’re standing around trying to think of how to keep the conversation going. “It’s a fun place.” He shifted, too, taking the folder into his other hand. He nodded. “Well, good. That sounds good.” Nodded again. He looked at his watch. “Show’s about to start.” “I’ll let you go, then. See you around sometime.” “Yeah, maybe at the salon?” “Sure. Come on by.” And I hoped he would. I wanted him to see me in some setting other than the jail or the courtroom. I didn’t want him to think of me in that way.

“Pow! Pow!” Sean made his right fist into a gun. He’d started doing that again.

77 “Be still,” I told him, “or you’ll fall off the stool.” He was up on top of the round, brown plastic ottoman that usually held Pearl’s Reader’s Digest back issues. Tonight, for the first time I’d ever known of, she was sitting in his recliner instead of her own, watching the game show channel. You could still see the indentation of his head above hers. Her grief was a weight in the room. Who could have expected a massive coronary? Who could’ve known? Pearl had been planted in that recliner all day. When I got back home from the jail, I saw that Sean had taken a spoon and dug out half the soil out of the banana plant and piled it into a pyramid on the beige carpet. Said he was making a cave for the soldiers to hide. She hadn’t noticed. “Sean Thomas, if you don’t stop wiggling, I’m going to stick you with a pin by accident.” The cowboy outfit I borrowed from Tammy, an old one her son had outgrown, was too big, but I could take the pants and the vest in. The hat was a different matter. We’d have to stuff it with newspaper to make it stay on top of his head. He was still young enough not to care, I hoped. The phone rang. Pearl punched the talk button and then punched it again to hang up. “They won’t leave me alone. They won’t listen to what I tell them and they won’t listen when I say I don’t want to talk to them.” The phone’s base was on the end table beside her. She reached over and flipped the ringer off. This did not seem to be sound business practice. “What if it’s not a client?” I asked. “They can leave a message.” She was having some sort of minor breakdown. I knew the signs. She was wearing the same denim dress she’d worn the day before, her hair stuck up in the back from resting all day against the recliner. She and Sean had polished off an entire jumbo bag of cheese puffs. Off in the distance, I heard a desperate voice pleading to the answering machine. “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked. “Do you want me to take you to the doctor?” She looked at me sharply. “Why in the world would I want to go to a doctor?” This is the sort of thing they always say. “Why don’t you come with me to the salon tomorrow? Tammy or Trent will give you a new do, maybe a manicure. You could do a whole spa day, like a little vacation away from home. Everybody needs a change, right? What do you say?”

78 She turned up the volume on the television. “I say who will pay for it.” I asked Sean again to be still, holding his arms still. Right, who would pay for it? That was the subject I’d been trying to figure out how to bring up. The salon doesn’t have enough business for me to ask for full-time status. Pearl, the way she’d been lately, was going to chase her business away. She got up, with effort. “Put him to bed and come downstairs.” She walked into the kitchen, unlocked the office door. Sean did the gun thing with his hand again and yelled, “Freeze!” “That’s a cop, not a cowboy,” I snapped, “and I am not fixing you one of those costumes.” “It is too a cowboy.” The boy was getting temperamental, too. “No, it’s not. Now come on. Bed time. Now.” In the office, Pearl told me to sit behind her desk. She sat on the other side, where clients normally sat, in the metal folding chair. She placed her right hand on the desk, palm down. “Read me.” “What?” With her left hand she slammed down the well worn tarot deck and stared her will into me. “What could I possibly tell you?” I didn’t want to touch her damned cards. She pushed them toward me, and I looked away, to the print of the annunciation, in a gold tone frame hung on the paneled wall. The print had always scared me. The idea of getting messages from above. Or wherever. “You can do this,” she said. “I can tell that you know things about people. Read me!” “I don’t know jack!” What the hell? I could feel her energies trying to force me, reaching into my brain to find out what button to push to get what she wanted. It was a familiar feeling and one that would result in a headache. I started to leave, but she grabbed my arm. I begged her not to make me touch the cards. “Girl, you got to wake up. You can do this. You know things about—“ ”Well, I didn’t know the important things, did I?” I snatched my arm back. “And neither did you.”

79 She looked at the deck, slumped almost onto the surface of the desk. Any further and she’d be resting on it. She mumbled, to herself, “I didn’t know. Why didn’t I know?” She stood slowly and walked back into the house, still mumbling—why, why, why?

Chapter 7

I was washing the hair of a woman, probably in her fifties, judging by the amount of gray roots. She’d feel so much better about herself when she got those taken care of, which was one of the things I’d always liked about working in a salon—making people feel better about themselves. She was nice enough, but she had that air about her that Southern women of a certain type do. Mom would’ve called her “high church.” Commanding of attention and deference. Always speaking as if to an audience. As I sat her back up and made sure the towel was securely wrapped so water wouldn’t dribble down, she fixed her blouse and said, “Thank you, dear.” She was dressed in Koret’s best linen, with matching lime green slip-on sandals. She asked me my name and if I was new in town. “Oh, no,” I’d said, hoping that would be the end of it. “I’ve been in Ballard for a few years, but I didn’t grow up here.” “Well, that’s all right, dear. But what in the world brought you here?” I didn’t want to answer her, didn’t want anybody here to know my own personal tragedy, at least not yet. I led her out of the shampoo room and around to Trent’s station. But she wasn’t going to let it rest. “How would such a sweet girl end up in Ballard?” Trent rolled his eyes as he shook out the black tarp-looking drape. “I married into it,” I said, turning to go back and straighten up the shampoo area. Trent asked her if she wanted the usual or if she wanted to try something different today. I didn’t hear her answer, her attention thus becoming focused on the only man in the place. I spent as long as I could in there, hoping to avoid her. I even dusted and then mopped, which we usually did only at the end of the day unless a large amount of water had spilled. There weren’t enough towels yet to wash laundry. I refolded the clean ones and stacked them neater.

80 But it was no use hiding, was it? It felt sneaky and shameful. So I went back out to the front desk and straightened the merchandise in the cases. And by the time the lady handed me a check and a cash tip, “here’s a little something for you, too, dear,” she’d forgotten her earlier line of questioning. She beamed proudly with her new helmet of big, teased layers, lacquered with spray. I hoped that was the usual and not Trent’s idea of different. Her roots were gone. At our meeting that day, which I had learned was code for break, even if we weren’t always able to take one together, Tammy came in with big news for Renee. Trent turned down the volume on the little kitchen-sized television. “All right, girl, guess what I heard now?” “On which topic?” Renee said after she’d swallowed her bite of cookie. I’d brought some homemade chocolate cookies, and it made me feel good for them to ooh and ah over them. I’d used one of Pearl’s favorite recipes, the card browned and smudged, with her loopy handwriting covering it. “The topic of your favorite little psychic woman.” My ears were burning, but I kept my head down and swallowed the best I could. There was only one psychic I knew of in town. “What’d she do now, the old bat?” Tammy punched me in the arm. “You’ve got to hear this. My aunt goes once a month to Sister Pearl, out there on the highway.” I was frozen in indecision. This could be fun, bonding gossip, but if they knew about Pearl then they might know about Andy, where he was and what he’d done. Then again, maybe they’d feel betrayed if I didn’t tell them. I was frozen. Tammy said, “So Aunt Louise goes to Sister Pearl to ask about my cousin and the loser.” Everyone but me nodded. I said, thinking of Pearl’s old client, “How old is your aunt?” “Why?” Mistake. Couldn’t be the right woman anyway, far too old to be Tammy’s aunt. I needed to get the conversation off on a tangent. “Why’s he a loser?” Renee jumped in. “Because he don’t work, that’s why. Can’t keep a job for longer than a month because he can’t deal with authority figures, don’t contribute anything to

81 the bills or running the house. And Tammy’s cousin is about to walk down the aisle all dressed in white gauze for him.” Tammy nodded, concern now clear on her face. This part of it wasn’t funny. “And that’s not all, either.” She looked at Trent, who cleared his throat stage-like and told me, in his indirect way, “We’re not sure he treats her right.” “What do you mean, exactly?” I could think of a bunch of categories that could refer to. “He’s got a nasty temper and a whole lot of self-esteem.” I got that. Bad news. “When is the wedding supposed to be?” “About a month, now,” Tammy said. “So, Aunt Loo goes to this psychic woman and asks her what to do, how to convince her daughter not to marry this asshole. And guess what the woman says?” “Well,” said Renee, “she wouldn’t tell her to break them up. She’ll tell them to get married and make babies and have a happily-ever-after no matter what.” She and Tammy high-fived over the table. “Score,” Tammy said. “She told Aunt Loo that God had brought them together and that it wasn’t Loo’s place to interfere, et cetera, et cetera. So, Loo said she asked the woman how the marriage would turn out. She said Sister Pearl smiled this real sweet, fakey smile and said it would be a happy marriage, and they’d have two children, a boy and a girl, and they’d all be happy.” “Bullshit,” Renee said. “It don’t take no psychic to see that.” “Her fairies are screwing with her. Besides, like her life is some paragon of family values.” That stopped me up short. Trent shook his head. Surely Pearl wouldn’t put the cousin in that situation. Would she? Maybe they were wrong about the asshole. Surely Pearl wouldn’t miss that. I cleared my throat and asked Renee why she was so interested in Pearl. “Because she always does that kind of thing. Tells you to get out and shake your booty if you’re single, no matter what. Or if you’re married, she says to go home and make him happy, no matter what. I went to her several times until I figured her out. She’s actually pretty good about reading your past. Like she confirmed what I’d suspected

82 about my ex and where he was getting all that extra spending money. But she’s not real good with the future. People had told me that. I wished I’d listened. Would’ve saved me some money.” This surprised me. I’d always thought Pearl was a legend in town. But this was pretty much what I’d seen with the other Louise, too. Single? Go out and have fun. Married? Stay home. I’d thought she’d been talking to herself and to me in that session. Renee was saying it was a pattern with her. Maybe her own vision of her own life was interfering. Sad. It just made her seem more like a real human being to me, if a faulty psychic. I was surprised that I wanted to defend her. I asked Renee if she went to psychics a lot. “I used to.” Tammy said, sarcastically, “She’s psychic herself, now.” “No, I’m not. I can read tarot cards, when I have a book to explain them. I’m not psychic, though.” “You got a real New Agey side to you, though.” She wiggled her fingers at Renee like sparklers. “Well. Yes, I do. So what?” She turned to me. “If you ever want your cards read, don’t pay money for it. Just ask me.” “She and the fairies will help you figure your troubles out.” “You only think you’re being funny.” We watched the morning talk show for a while. I had no idea what the two of them had meant by all that, fairies and all. And I was having trouble seeing Renee with the cards, using a book and not psychic powers, like it was just a game. Like the Ouija Board. I was suddenly tired of my secret and just decided to get it over with. I cleared my throat again. “Y’all know my last name?” “Yeah, Sutton.” Tammy remembered, being the one to sign my checks, but I think the other two had forgotten. I figured they’d jump straight to Pearl, but they didn’t. Trent immediately said, “Oh,” snapping his fingers. “Not the Sutton of Sutton Tire and Automotive?” I wished I could change my mind and take it back. “So you married our former football star, Andy

83 Sutton?” God, Ballard was a small town. I nodded. “Okay,” Trent said, looking at my wedding ring, which I twisted on my finger. “You said you hadn’t made up your mind.” I sighed. “Still haven’t.” “Uh-oh,” said Renee. “I heard about his situation.” Tammy and Trent both nodded, saying they were sorry to hear it. “I had no idea,” I said, “no clue at all.” Except for all those little things I should’ve paid attention to, but hadn’t. Renee said, “I went to school with him, you know. In high school he thought he was all that and a bag of chips. He and that Linda girl, the rich cheerleader with the blonde hair.” Trent said, “Okay, which decade are we in now, with that phrase?” “What?” Tammy sat back in the chair and raised her hand like she was in school. “Y’all, I get it now.” They all looked at her as she looked at me. “So you are that Sutton. As in, that woman. We’ve been talking about her right in front of your face, this whole time. Jeez.” Renee sucked in her breath. “Oh, wow, I’m sorry.” I felt bad for them, felt their embarrassment. At least it made me forget my own. “It’s all right. I have to live with her, you know. I make her appointments, too. That’s what I do in the afternoons.” That got them interested. They wanted to know what it was like living with her, in that house. I described it the best I could, but I left out the growing signs of depression, the clients storming out mad. Her trying to force me into reading the cards, how much the whole thing generally bothered me. I didn’t tell any of that. They hung on my every word.

Sean had a bit of a fever and a stomachache the next morning. It took a while for Pearl to convince me to go ahead and go to work, but I finally did. I tucked him back into bed and left him with her. As I walked up the pathway to the salon, out came a man I didn’t recognize at first. It was Jeff, in civilian clothes. Dockers and a polo shirt the same blue as his eyes,

84 darker than Andy’s. It surprised me that Jeff would go for the preppie look. He even tucked his shirt in rather than letting it drape casually. It definitely wasn’t the way he’d been in high school, as far as I could remember anyway. If he’d dressed like he was off for his yacht any minute, I’d have remembered. He said hey to me as he put his wallet into his back pocket. “See,” he said, “I told you it had gotten too long.” His hair looked the same to me, of course. That officer buzz cut, like Mr. Sutton in his Army pictures. So here he was, where he could see me in a place other than jail. I was glad. I was about to go on up the steps when he said, “Hey, I’ve been thinking.” I adjusted my purse on my shoulder, not really wanting to hurry inside even though I was late. I wondered if they could see us from inside. “Why don’t we catch lunch sometime?” he asked. It caught me by surprise. I think my mouth dropped open. “No big deal, you know. Just old high school buddies. We could catch up on old times.” He looked at his watch and then wiped the face of it with the stomach of his shirt. He looked me in the eyes. His were cool, casual. “I don’t know.” I felt a little defensive. Cops made me feel that way. But I was flattered that he wanted to hang out with me. He shrugged. “Might be fun, gossip a little about old Mill-Town.” He turned to leave and then turned back. “I know. I’ll just give you my cell number. You got a pen?” He took his wallet back out and got out one of his cards. He wrote his personal cell number on the back and handed me the card and my pen, still warm from his touch. “If you change your mind, give me a call.” I found myself saying “okay” and waving as he walked to his truck, a full-sized Ford, not brand new but neat as a pin. I went on inside and didn’t say a word to anyone about what I was thinking about doing.

I was helping Renee straighten up her room. Tammy and Trent were both with clients, so it was just me and Renee, washing and sterilizing the foot baths and nail baths, lining up the nail polish bottles according to the colors on the rainbow. The earlier conversation with Jeff was playing on my mind. And the one with Andy, when he basically told me to move on, if I wanted to. I wanted to see Jeff again. Then again, I

85 didn’t want to want to. I wanted to keep the high moral ground. But the ring on my finger felt heavy. I wanted to ask Renee to do something I couldn’t dare ask Pearl. I wanted to know my future. When we finished cleaning, Renee lit short stick of incense and turned the lights off. The room was lit by the soft glow of shaded sunlight from the window. A slight breeze moved the branches of the willow tree, the shadows lazy and meditative. She put on some kind of music that was very different from the top forty pop and rock she usually played. This music was peaceful, with flutes and a guitar, itself lazy and meditative, calming. “What is this?” I asked her. “Oh, sorry. I just need to chill out today. You can turn on the radio if you want.” She plopped into a chair and put her feet up on the ottoman. I could see the tattoo of leaves and stems in a chain around her right ankle. “No,” I said, “I like it. What is it?” “They call it ambient or New Age or something like that. Lowers my blood pressure.” I walked over and looked at the CD case. Trance Chill 2. Renee said, “I can burn you a copy if you want.” “Yeah, please do.” “Come sit down and put your feet up, Meredith.” She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d do something for me.” The mood and the lighting and the music were making me forget what I was afraid of. All I knew was that I wanted to know. “Could you get out your tarot cards for me?” She sat up and smiled. “Any time.” She walked over to the shelves against the wall and picked up a wooden box about the size of a hardback book. “Anytime for you, and anytime for this. Here, hold this.” She opened the box and took out a piece of purple sateen fabric. It was folded neatly and had silver stars and swirl patterns on it. She handed me the box to hold while she unfolded the fabric and draped it over her table like a small tablecloth.

86 In my hands, the box felt light. Inside, the stack of cards looked worn, but not nearly as worn as Pearl’s. What was I about to do? The music chimed and tinkled softly, safe and friendly, lulling me. She took the box back from me and we sat opposite each other. She took out the cards and sat them on the table between us. “So what kind of reading do you want?” I had no idea. “Maybe something about where my life is going. I don’t really know how this is done. I’ve seen Pearl do it for her clients, but she’s never done it for me.” “Really?” Renee arched an eyebrow, as if to say this was another thing the woman hadn’t done right. “What does she do now, Celtic Cross, or what?” “I really don’t know. She has the client put her hand on the table.” I put my right hand palm down on the table next to the cards. “Then she puts the cards out one by one in concentric circles so that the hand is the bottom of the circle. She uses just about all of the cards and talks as she goes.” “Yeah, that’s how she did it with me, years ago. Exactly like that. She even put down the title card, which isn’t even a part of the deck. She was talking about my parents and why they did what they did while she was pointing to the title card.” She looked thoughtful. “I don’t think she’s actually using the deck that much. If she really is psychic. So this will be different. This will be just a pure card reading.” She shuffled the cards three times and put the deck back on its spot in the middle. “You cut the deck now, in three stacks going to the left, and use your left hand. And think of any questions you want to ask it.” Ask it, the deck? That gave me a chill up my spine. Probably a figure of speech, though. So I cut the deck, and it felt awkward using my left hand. I thought about the things I wanted to know. On the second cut, a few extra cards fell out from the stack in my hand, and I started to pick them back up. “Leave them,” she said. “They want to be on that stack.” They wanted to? It sounded a bit froo-froo and New Agey. So in other words, like silly fun. She took the three stacks and made them one again, with the wayward cards somewhere in the middle. Then holding all of them in both hands in a fan pattern, with the faces down, she said, “Pick one. The first one that catches your eye.”

87 My eye did go right to one card for some reason. Maybe it stuck out a little or showed a bit more of the stars pattern on the back. Whatever. I picked it out. She told me to put it down so we could study it. “Ah-ha!” She nodded. “The Eight of Swords. Tell me what you see in it.” “I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.” “Just describe what you see.” The picture looked simple enough. I saw a young woman wearing a loose dress, like an old-fashioned nightgown. She was blindfolded with her arms tied behind her back, standing on uneven ground that was dotted with puddles. She was like half in puddle and half on the ground. There were five silver swords stuck into the ground to the right side of her, up next to her but in a row, and two to her left. The eighth sword was in front of her. If she were to walk forward, she’d run into the sword. I said all this out loud. “Okay, this is really interesting. What’s in the background?” Behind the woman, at a distance, was a hilltop or small mountain with a little castle or medieval village with red roofs. Other than the roofs, the small buildings were gray. They were so far away they blended into the color of the mountain. The sky, also, was gray and a bit cloudy. Had it just stormed? Was that why the puddles were there? We sat for a moment silently. “Okay,” Renee said. “How does she seem to you?” I thought for a moment. I was trying to guess what the right answer would be. I didn’t want to get it wrong. “Where’s your book?” She looked at me. “They always say you shouldn’t depend on the book. You should just look at the card itself and how you react to it.” “They who?” I wanted the right answer. I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to go see someone like Pearl to get it. “The how-to books. They all say to use them as a last resort, and to look at the card yourself, with your own subconscious and all. Anyway, I forgot to put it back in the box. It’s at home.” So I was on my own with this one. I looked at the card again. May as well try. “Well, if I had to guess, she seems scared and alone. Confused. She can’t tell if there’s danger or not. Can’t tell if she should turn back around or go forward somewhere new.”

88 Wow. How did it do that? Pin me down so? But try as I might, I couldn’t feel any spirits in that room or in that card. No mind-control games like Pearl would do, either. Renee looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression. “Go on.” I looked at the card again. “She is in a mess and cannot figure out how to get out of it.” The girl even looked like me, with long brown, straight hair. I looked at the background again. “Her home and family seem a long way away. They’re in the other direction.” I thought about the color red on the roofs. I sighed. “It’s like what she loves is separated from her. She’s stuck out in the middle of nowhere by herself.” I almost felt like crying. This struck right in the middle of my situation, my dilemma, or dilemmas. All of them. I was stuck. Renee still stared at the card, upside down from her point of view. “What about the eighth sword? Or the first, if you go from left to right?” I looked down through a film of almost-tears. “That’s not clear. She’s headed right for it. Like a big obstacle in her path.” And it was indeed a sword. But it was point- down in the ground. Was it really dangerous? “It feels like she’s hemmed in by swords.” “Uhm-hmm. Except there’s not one to her left. If she just turns straight to face us, or backs straight up, she’ll be okay. It’s something off to the side she’s going to run into. Interesting.” She picked the card up and looked at it one last time. Then she handed it to me. “Look at this again before you go to sleep. Put it on your nightstand overnight. Tell yourself you’ll dream about what it means or what you should do.” I muttered a thank-you as I left to go put the card in my purse. I was holding a tarot card. I was planning to take it home and sleep beside it. It just sat there in my purse, all the rest of the day. I wasn’t scared at all about it.

Chapter 8

I put off going to bed that night, until my book dropped right out of my hands onto the bed, then bounced onto the floor, and I couldn’t figure out what page I’d been on. My eyes were heavy, but I felt keyed up inside. I got the tarot card out of my purse and looked at it again. I was glad I was wearing pajamas with cats on them rather than a

89 plain, flowing shift like the woman in the card. It was me, though. Blindfolded, tied up, and surrounded by swords stuck in the ground. I wondered if the eight of swords in Pearl’s deck looked the same. I didn’t wonder enough to go and look. I propped the card up against the base of the lamp so that it would face me as I lay down and pulled up the covers. I could hear Pearl snoring softly from her room, and the big school house clock ticking down the hall in the den. Sleep would not come. The traffic outside, the occasional semi, even at this time of the night. Their headlights would fill the room and cut smooth and fast to the other side, across my body. The clock kept ticking. The air conditioner clicked on and hummed loudly underneath the house. Every time I looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, I could see the card. In the greenish ambient light, it looked evil, like she was about to be sacrificed on the low plain or something. She seemed to be Justice then, not only blindfolded but also bound and therefore useless, toothless. There was no justice in this world for you, the card seemed to say. My mind kept racing. I kept turning from side to side. I moved the card so that it faced the door rather than me. I still tossed and turned. There might be something evil in this afterall. Maybe I had violated some rule in the universe, made God unhappy. Or made somebody else happy. It was night that you could see this side of things the best. It wasn’t going to work. I picked up the card and put it back in my purse, in the very bottom, face down. Then I opened the door softly and tip-toed down the hall, through the den, and into the kitchen, where I put my purse on the floor in front of the office door. There, with your own kind. Out of my sight. I had passed the test. Given up the temptation. In the bathroom, I emptied my bladder, then washed my hands and my face. In the bed, I lay down on my side, just like I used to when I prayed as a child, with my bottom hand out and open for the Lord to hold my hand and comfort me. I prayed for the first time in years. Dear God, if you can still hear me. I still believe in you. I still fear you. Please forgive me for playing with the dark games today. I’ve learned my lesson. Please don’t judge me too harshly for my weakness in this, my time of need. Please tell me what to do

90 in my life. I need your guidance. And your strength. Please forgive me. I know I’ve done wrong and thought wrong. Please.

She called in the afternoon, calling Pearl’s number instead of my cell number. I answered “Sister Pearl, Psychic Counselor.” I cringed a bit inside, after making my promise to God last night. But we often have to do things we don’t want to, to get by in this world. I was just taking appointments. Besides, in the light of day, all that didn’t seem so scary anymore. I’d always had a big imagination. So easy to see that in daylight. “I knew it,” my mother’s voice said. I sighed. “What?” “What are you doing there, working for that woman? Have you lost your mind?” “This is where I’m staying, Mom, until I can get back on my feet. I’m just helping her out. She’s not even charging me rent or anything.” “Bless Jesus. Why couldn’t you stay with your own mother?” I paused. Was she kidding? Her memory was apparently rewriting the past again. “I have a job at a salon here in Ballard.” “Well, thank God there’s at least that. But she’s got you doing the devil’s work, too. Do you even go to church?” “Yes, we do, for your information.” I lied. Even Pearl had started to slack off, sleeping in on Sunday mornings and letting me fix pancakes and bacon. “So you’re lying to God on top of everything else. She’s just using you, you know, for her own con artist jobs. Right? You married a thief and now you’re living with his con-artist mother. For God’s sake, Meredith, what are you thinking? Answer me that. Do you have any idea what people here in Milton are saying about you? Because you’re playing a dangerous game, here, letting her tell you what to think and what to do. Next thing you know, you’ll be pledging allegiance to the dark one and selling all your souls.” “What the hell are you going on about? What movies have you been watching?” I tried to keep my voice down. Pearl was in the office with her only client of the whole day. I took the phone into my bedroom. “How does anybody in that godforsaken town know anything, and who cares what they’re saying? They don’t know shit. And you, you don’t know the first thing about it, either. She rescued my butt, and—“

91 “Because her no-good son got you into that mess. She had to rescue you to keep her claws in you. Are you blind?” “Mom, you’re sounding crazy.” She drew in her breath loudly. I knew that would push her button. Her sister, who I’d never met, was bipolar. Mom was sensitive about that. And she was making me completely angry, like I’d always gotten when she went off on a rant. It was like a knee-jerk reaction. I could feel the rage boiling up into my throat. Pearl wasn’t the most nurturing person I’d ever met, but she’d stepped in and helped when no one else had. I’d have been on welfare and out in the street, or living with a crazy woman who’d never even made an effort for anybody but herself. I wasn’t going to sit here and let her talk bad about Pearl. She said, “Well, missy, you just wait and see what you’re doing to yourself. Have you even stopped to think what this is doing to Sean?” “Since when have you ever stopped to think about him?” She paused. “Now, listen here. I will not have my grandson living in that house, exposed to that kind of foolishness. Do you hear?” “Well, what exactly are you going to do about it? I’m his mother, and I am an adult, in case you’ve forgotten. I feel that this is the best arrangement under the circumstances. We will stay here, where we are perfectly safe, until we can afford an apartment or something on our own. Do you hear?” She hung up on me.

I fumed the rest of the day. Pearl asked at dinner if something was wrong, but I said, no, just stress at work. She could probably read me like a book. Or maybe not. Maybe because of the family connection thing, or maybe she was just off-duty. I really didn’t know that much at all about Pearl’s abilities, or how they worked. And I wondered if I was taking her side just to spite my own mother. Cutting off my nose to spite my face. In bed that night, I realized that this truly had to be only a temporary solution. I needed to find a full-time job, one that would pay enough for daycare or pre- kindergarten. It would be another year before Sean would be in school. And then there was this: how could I continue to live with my mother-in-law when I hadn’t decided if I wanted to keep my marriage? Wasn’t I really lying to her? Using her?

92 I really did feel like the woman on the card. The Eight of Swords. And for just a minute, the thought crossed my mind that it was some spirit who made me choose that card. That’s how it was so on-the-mark. A thrill of terror shot through my chest. But then I pushed that idea aside. I’d chosen my own card. Hadn’t I? Psychics may or may not talk to spirits, but Renee had said you didn’t have to be psychic to read tarot cards. They were just a game, like regular cards. A game of chance. Right? But the card was too spot-on to be chance. Mom would say the spirit was in the cards themselves, but did I really believe that either? That was part of her crazy church talk. Wasn’t it? I was going to have another sleepless night. I turned over and watched the headlights from the traffic for a while. I was sick of worrying about the same things over and over again. I wanted something new, something just for me. Something that might lead to somewhere better, a future. I was thinking, of course, of Jeff’s lunch invitation. Who knew where that would lead? Maybe nowhere. Maybe somewhere. I thought of the card again. The woman was facing the left angle, where the eighth sword was in her way. But if she turned to her left, or even went straight, the way was clear. A way forward. Away from that trapped place, and away from the past in the background. She’d have to either stay right where she was, or strike out for somewhere on trust. I’d give him a call back tomorrow. What could it hurt?

We met at Giggles café, down on the east end of Main Street, which is also the highway, the long highway around which practically the whole town had arranged itself. Pearl’s place was far out to the west. Now I was going east. Jeff had answered his phone in a tone of voice that was a little irritated. Must have been something at work. When he realized it was me, he brightened up a bit and said he was glad I’d called him, and that he’d thought I probably might. Then he told me to pick the place, which caught me off guard. I’d been a married woman for all of my adult life, and with a small child on top of that. What did I know about where friends might meet to “do lunch” or whatever? I told him I had no idea where we should meet. “Aw, come on,” he said. “What do you like to eat?”

93 I really didn’t care. Andy and I had tried all the dinner sorts of places. We both liked pizza and Chinese and steak. The one place we’d never been, because it was a lunch-only sort of place, was Giggles. Their ad in the newspaper was cute, with a curly script. And I was a working woman now, doing lunch. And, I had decided, this would be two friends catching up on high school. I’d pay my share. I went as soon as I got off from the salon that morning. He’d already chosen a booth near the back corner, near the old-fashioned juke box and a huge artificial banana tree. The place was really cute and cheerful. He smiled and snapped his cell phone shut as I walked back to the booth. He looked really good in his uniform. I sat down and scooted to the center of the bench, across from him. “I didn’t know you guys got a lunch break. I guess I never thought of it.” “Oh, yeah. We have to stagger them. And we’re always on call so to speak.” He held up his cell phone, then put it to his right, next to his fancy sunglasses. Very stylish. I didn’t remember him being stylish in high school. Of course, I didn’t remember much about him at all, except that he sat behind me in home room a couple of years. He was always quiet, daydreamy. If I remembered correctly. “How’s life treating you?” he asked. “Fine, I guess. You?” “The usual bullshit. Excuse my French.” We both sat, trying to think of something to say. We hadn’t fallen into a friendly rhythm yet, and I was out of practice. I started to ask him if he’d arrested anybody scary, but then thought better of it. We both just studied the menu for a while. Everything on there was something I liked, but with a twist. Like quesadillas with shrimp, or black bean salad as the side instead of potato salad. Lots of things came with slices of avocado. It all looked interesting and new to me, and I couldn’t decide what to try. I asked Jeff if he’d eaten there before. “Oh, sure. All the salads are pretty good. And the soups, too. What are you going to get?” I picked the shrimp quesadillas because I didn’t want to seem indecisive, wimpy. So when the waitress came, I ordered that and he ordered the California burger, with avocados and bacon. We both got diet sodas, too. Andy always got sweet tea. I needed to

94 stop comparing them all the time. It didn’t really matter. One had seemed good and turned out to be rotten, and the other was one of the ones who caught him out in his rottenness. Simple difference. The waitress put our drinks on the table, and the straws, and said our lunches would be out shortly. Jeff leaned forward. “Guess where I went this weekend?” “Where?” “Come on, guess. Play the game.” “Fine, Atlanta.” “Nope. Milton.” I frowned. “Why would you want to go there?” He frowned back. “To see my folks, Meredith.” I felt chastised enough. Just because I didn’t have any reason to go back there didn’t mean everyone didn’t. He said, “Remember Robert Cooksey?” I shook my head. “Yes, you do. When we had home room in the shop classroom that year, he got his hand caught in the vise and had to go the emergency room. You’ve got to remember that.” I did. He was a sweet-natured skinny little guy who wore a baseball cap all the time. Sweet-natured but not quiet. I could remember other times he’d gotten himself in trouble, too. But all I said was, “Okay, yeah.” “He’s in law school now in Athens. Top of his class. I ran into him getting gas. Did you know that Milton’s finally getting its own Wal-Mart? Yeah. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, myself, though. Know what I mean? It’s like when you grow up some place, your definition in your head of being successful is to get the hell out of there. Right?” I nodded. “And you and I both got out, didn’t we?” He let that one lie for a while. There was something jazzy playing on the machine. “Will you go to the reunion when we have one?” I shrugged. I really didn’t know. Probably not. “I can’t wait. I heard that Patrick Stiles, football star so to speak, right? Weighs about three hundred and something pounds and has just about lost his hair. Julie Kennedy lives in Atlanta. She married somebody she met in technical school.”

95 He went on, talking about people I only vaguely remembered and would just as soon not hear about. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about them as people, it was just that it reminded me of high school, of that time in that place. And the longer he went on, the more I realized that despite my current predicament, my dearth of options so to speak, I did in fact consider myself a success. For getting out of there and away. Because I could make something of myself here in Ballard. For instance, the job at the salon. I could drive to Sinclair Tech and take a few classes and get trained to cut hair or do nails or the skin treatments myself, and have an actual career. In Milton, I could live with my mother the lunatic and work at the new Wal-Mart. I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it. He talked on, about people from our past, and I just let it wash over me. Our food came. It was different, unusual. My quesadilla had little tiny, soft cocktail shrimp as well as black beans, and it was really good. I asked Jeff if his California Burger was good. He held half of it out to me. “Here, try it.” I took a bite of it as he held it. It was really good. Much better than the usual bacon cheeseburger. The avocado was a subtle taste, and very silky. “So,” I said, wishing we were already at the level where we could actually trade halves of our dishes. “What’s your job like, out on the streets every day?” I wanted to talk about now.

96 THE DEVIL

Chapter 9

Toward the end of the lunch, I’d kept looking at my watch and thinking about Pearl. I’d told her I might bebop around town a little after work, might go to lunch with Tammy and Renee or somebody. I’d tried not to look too restless and guilty, both with Pearl and then with Jeff. Finally, he’d said, “Why don’t you go on if you need to?” I didn’t really want to but felt I probably should. It felt just like in high school when I’d be out with Andy and felt I really should be getting back home. Mom might or might not be upset. Who knew? But it was something I ought to do, be a good girl, be the one in control. Be ready to go to school the next day or whatever. Now I had to worry about my mother-in-law and her being left too long with my son. A good mother ought to go home and spend more time with her son. And a good assistant ought to be there to answer the phone. When the waitress came, I reached for the ticket and started to suggest we split it, but he actually snatched it from me and said it was on him. So I said, well, at least let me get the tip, and he frowned and looked irritated. “No,” he said, “I got it.” I was afraid maybe I’d insulted him. I know police officers don’t make that much. He handed the waitress his credit card and got out his keys and his cell phone while we waited. “Thank you,” I said. “It was really nice.” “Yeah, this place does pretty well, I think. I’ve had better omelets, especially when I was in Atlanta at the last training session. We get to go up there once a year or so for classes.” “Oh?” That sounded like fun. The waitress came back. He added the tip to the receipt and signed it, and he walked me out. I stared at the floor, partly to keep from tripping, also hoping no one would recognize me. But then, why would they? I didn’t really know that many people in this town. Andy did. “There’s a little parking lot behind here, did you know?” I hadn’t known. I’d parked right there on the street in front. He walked me on out to my car. “Yeah. That

97 training conference in Atlanta was on techniques for gathering DNA. We’re going to start doing that sort of thing. There’s a real trick to it, you have to be trained, that’s for sure.” “Oh, yeah?” My door was open, and I leaned on my left leg, my right already inside. He stood on the sidewalk. “We might have to do this again sometime,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could, surprising myself that I’d actually said it. I felt vulnerable out there in the street in the sunshine. Visible. “Yeah. Maybe coffee. Call me.” We exchanged smiles and he walked away.

I stopped at the dollar store to provide my cover. They had dinosaur cartoons on DVD at a good price. When I pulled into Pearl’s driveway, I saw that a client had started to back out, so I pulled to the left to get out of her way. She was backing slow and deliberate in an old, huge Cadillac. I parked in front of the front door, leaving the client enough room for a three-point turn. I almost had my key to the lock when the door opened, fast, and Pearl stepped out onto the front porch, pushing me back a little. My heart skipped. She spit past me, toward the yard. I thought it was all over. The game was up. Had I really forgotten she was psychic? That she would know? “Pearl, I was just. . .” She raised her hand to stop me. I heard the gravel as the client pulled out from the driveway to the highway. “That one was the last one,” she said. “And you!” She said to me as she turned back toward the dark interior. “You figure out how to get that goddamned sign down.” It took me a minute to realize she meant the sign near the highway, the one with her name and the painted palm. The one advertising her business. I closed the door and stood there, holding my purse, keys, and yellow plastic bag from the dollar store. “What?” She’d walked on into the kitchen and was opening cabinet doors and closing them loudly. She wasn’t thinking, Sean would be down for his nap. I threw my stuff on the couch and found her on her hands and knees with the bottom corner cabinet open. She’d found a bottle of rum. It looked old and stale. I’d never seen her drink even a beer.

98 “Pearl, what’s going on?” “You want some?” I shook my head. She poured it straight into an old, cracked coffee mug. She took one sip and leaned back against the countertop. “What you going to do about that sign?” I had no idea. It was probably four by four foot, twelve feet in the air on two poles more than half the diameter of telephone poles. Embedded in concrete several feet down, most likely. “Why don’t you call Hector and his buddies?” She shot me an accusing look. “I can’t get in touch with him. Don’t know where he is. The sign’s got to come down.” “All right, I’ll have to call somebody.” “Well, do it. I’m going to take a nap.” She finished off the mug of rum. “Pearl?” I went to her appointment book to see if there was anybody else supposed to come this afternoon. She snatched the book from me, threw it in the bottom cabinet, and kicked the door shut. “You won’t be needing that anymore. Sister Pearl is through. She has no more energy to tell other people how to fix their sorry little lives. Got it?” I nodded, still afraid this might have something to do with me and what I’d done. Maybe not. She took her mug and her bottle and headed back toward her bedroom. I sat at the table and ran it all through my head. Another huge change. I should’ve seen it coming, though. The signs had been there. So how much money would this put us out?

Tammy said, counting it on her fingers, “The reason I called this meeting is, one, business is pretty good, we’re definitely making it. But, two, I think we could do even better. So let’s hear some ideas.” We were sitting at one of the round tables in Giggles. It had been my idea to go there, when Tammy had gone racing around the shop that morning saying, “Hey, let’s do lunch, ya’ll.” And with Pearl now a full-time caregiver, I didn’t have to worry about rushing back. I had basically been freed and laid off, all at once. “Go on,” Pearl had said over the phone. “This is what I do, now. You grow the career.” Sometimes she almost sounded like she was doing an accent. When she’d gotten

99 up from her nap that day, the day she quit reading cards and palms, she’d instructed me to make a new message for her answering machine and to let the machine get all the calls from then on. “Mrs. Pearl Sutton has retired as a Spiritual Consultant. Please accept her best wishes, and goodbye.” Those weren’t exactly the words she’d told me to use, but I thought tact was a better way to go. When I got to the salon the next morning, I couldn’t wait to tell everybody Pearl had quit. Actually, I couldn’t wait to see what they thought about it, because I wasn’t sure what I thought myself. We hadn’t opened the front door yet and were all in the kitchen. “Y’all, guess what? Pearl quit.” Trent put his Tupperware lunch in the refrigerator. “Quit what?” Tammy raised an eyebrow, and Renee said, “Uh-huh.” “She’s retired,” I said. “Wants me to take the sign down and not accept anymore appointments.” Renee walked off toward her room, muttering, “Ooh, I got some gossip now.” I for once got some coffee. Tammy took me aside. “And where does this leave you?” I shrugged. “How much money did she make doing that?” I didn’t know. Here I was again, at the mercy of someone else’s bad decisions, doing just whatever they wanted, and I had no idea how it was going to affect me. Trick me twice, shame on me. So now, two days later, about mid-morning, Tammy goes rushing around saying let’s do lunch. “Ladies morning out,” she called out to Trent. He smiled back at her like ha-ha. He was frosting Mrs. Collins, who had been trying to hook her youngest granddaughter up with him for years, apparently. The jab went right over her head. She smiled brightly at him through the mirror, flirting. So we sat in Giggles, a small thrill rushing through me at the thought that this was twice I’d been here in the space of one week. What, seven feet away now from where I’d sat with Jeff. This time I ordered what he’d had. I played with the idea of telling the guys about my other lunch, but I wanted to keep it to myself for a while. “Good choice in restaurants, Meredith. I hadn’t been here since. . .somebody’s bridal shower,” Tammy said. “Well, how about some ideas? Let’s drum up more business.”

100 Trent said, “We need more marketing, I think.” Out of all the interesting menu choices, he’d gone with the regular old cheeseburger. “What, our marketing right now is, you put an ad in the yellow pages. That’s basically it, right?” “There’s an ad in the paper every other Saturday.” Tammy sounded a little defensive. “You and me designed that ad ourselves, right? Love’s Day Spa on Love Avenue, like a pun or something on the street name.” Renee had wanted a margarita with her lunch, but Giggles didn’t serve liquor, or even beer. She got a green tea-mango freeze instead. I decided to get one of those, too. Tammy said it was a business lunch, so it was all on the Spa. “I can’t say I’ve ever really liked that name, Love’s Day Spa,” Trent said. “What? It’s the name of the street. People won’t forget where we’re at.” Renee sucked up so much of her freeze, I’d have gotten a headache. Trent sighed. “It’s boring, I think, and cutesy.” “Oh,” Tammy said, “because you don’t like cutesy, I remember. But we voted on this and you lost. We’re not going through all that again.” Actually, I thought the business was probably young enough that a name change wouldn’t hurt. And actually, this could be the right time, because I didn’t like it, either. I could tell that old tempers were starting to flare, so I cleared my throat and broke in. “Well, y’all, what I noticed about that ad was that it basically just implied hair styling. I never knew you had manicures and pedicures and facials until I showed up and looked around. Also, the ad looked classy but didn’t show the sort of jazzy fashion the place itself has. It doesn’t have the same kind of energy.” They were studying me like I was offering a suspicious solution to world peace. So I added, “That’s just what I thought.” They kept staring. “Like, maybe we need an ad that looks younger and more stylish. And mentions the other things we do. Because I don’t think the other places in town have all that.” Tammy was stirring her coffee and nodding. She looked at Trent. “That’s why we wanted to call it a Day Spa.” In for a penny. I said, “But Love?” Renee said, “So you think it’s boring too?”

101 On second thought, no, that wasn’t the right word. I said, “It sounds like red pleather and white feathers and, like, cheap Valentine’s clichés. To me. Which isn’t at all what the Spa is like, really.” Tammy and Renee were staring holes into me. Trent was smiling at the remainder of his cheeseburger on the plate. Tammy sat back hard against her chair. “Jesus.” Renee studied her French manicure. The waitress came and asked if we wanted the check. That’s the good thing about restaurants, you can count on periodic interruptions. As we walked out the back door to Trent’s minivan, Tammy said, “That reminds me, Meredith. Is there any way you can you come full-time?”

When I asked Pearl about going full-time to work, she waved her hand at me like, “whatever, of course.” This meant she would go full-time as childcare provider, and she waved her hand again. “What about the sign?” she asked, getting a cobbler out of the oven in mid-afternoon. “He’s coming tomorrow morning.” “You’ll have to deal with it before you go in.” She looked at me. I started to protest. All she would have to do was tell the guy what to do. But when she’d said she was done with it, she was done. The phone rang, as it had been doing every once in a while. A male voice asked the answering machine for an appointment. Pearl turned down the volume. Some people don’t pay attention to your outgoing message. Either that, or they’re just stubborn. Or hopeful. The sign guy’s name was Carl, of Carl’s Handyman Service. He was the only one in the book. When I answered the front door, I’d expected to see some middle-aged man with paint-spattered gray work pants. This guy was in his mid-twenties, only a little older than me, in jeans and hiking boots. We shook hands, and he gave me one of his cards. “You Mrs. Sutton?” There was a tone in his voice. “Yes,” I said, “but not the Mrs. Sutton. I don’t do fortunes. That’s my mother-in- law.” “Okay.” He laughed. “Is that the sign you want taken down? Let me show you what I’m going to have to do.” We walked out to the front of the yard, close to the semis

102 whizzing by, and the fast cars. Amazing how a few hundred feet of pine-lined driveway can make the house feel more insulated. He explained how he’d have to take a chainsaw and cut the poles, how it would cost extra to dig up the stumps, and they were probably buried in concrete, no telling how far down. I said, “So, what do you want to do?” “Oh, I can get all that out, if you want me to. It’d be easier to leave them there. I could cut them about even with the ground. They’ll probably rot, eventually.” “Just leave them there, then.” I could picture planting a nice big screen of old fashioned azalea bushes in that area, the ones that get really big and round. She already had some. A bigger screen would help cut the noise of the traffic even more. Plus, it would look nice. On the road side and on the house side, I could sprinkle in some daylilies or something that would add color. Day lilies like the ones I’d left on my land. The land. I started to walk back toward the house. “She retiring? So to speak? Your mother-in-law?” I nodded. “Yeah,” he said, pulling on thick work gloves, “I expect people these days have caught on to all that kind of stuff. If you know what I mean.” He turned and walked back to his truck, parked on the grass just off the side of the highway. “Hey!” I yelled. “What are you going to do with it?” He turned back. “Ah, I can haul it to the dump if you want me to. Or you can leave it side of the road for the city to pick up, if you call them. They may charge you extra. You got a burn pile out back?” No, we didn’t. I asked him would he please haul it to the dump for us, today. And I left him to it.

Tammy’s client was someone we’d seen in Giggles that day at lunch, someone she’d gone to high school with, a brunette lady who came in with very fixed, slightly poofy Southern hair, and a cute velour track outfit. Lisa. She and Tammy chatted away about old high school memories, including me as I sat on a stool I’d pulled out from the counter into the archway to Tammy’s station. Looking over at me every once in a while like I knew just who they were talking about. I don’t know why, but if high school is

103 what two people have in common, then that’s all they seem to be able to discuss. That, and the contrast between school and what they’re doing now. Lisa was a stay-at-home mom with gossip to share about PTA members and who was running around with who, and where they went to do it. Tammy stiffened a bit then and got quiet. Lisa asked her how everything was going with her. I waited to see if she’d answer, because she’d been very tight-lipped around us lately. We knew there had been tensions at home, but she hadn’t shared anything specific with us. “Oh,” she said, “you know. Work, work.” “How’s Bruce?” Tammy laughed. “I wouldn’t know. I divorced him two years after we got married. Been married to David Sowell now, seven and a half years.” “Oh. Sorry. I can’t remember if I knew that. He from around here?” “Nope. Sinclair.” “Sinclair? And you’re living here, out in the boondocks? What does he do?” Tammy rummaged around on her countertop until she found some tall can of mousse she was looking for. “Nothing much.” There was a pause then, and then Lisa asked me if I graduated from their school. No, I said, I was from Milton, graduated from Tyler County. Fifty whole graduates in my class. “Oh. Wow.” A pause. “Do you like it here?” “Oh, yes. Anybody from Milton who makes it out of Milton is a success, we always used to say.” “Hmm,” she said with her hair being brushed down toward her face. “I know what you mean by that. We always felt the same way here. Isn’t that right, Tammy?” Tammy picked up the hairdryer and said yep. The customer continued, “I guess it’s all relative. Wherever you come from, that’s where you want to get away from.” That was true. It still always surprised me to hear people criticize Ballard the same way we used to talk about Milton. They should try living there for a while. Tammy blew her hair dry downwards and then had her tilt her head backwards and brushed it that way for a while. I wondered if Lisa was going to want her to spray it stiff and poofy, but she didn’t. It looked very nice, smooth and sleek when she was finished.

104 When I was checking her out at the cash register, I also went ahead and suggested an appointment in six weeks. “Shoot that. How about four? This is my only chance to talk to adults, seems like. Oh, hey! Tammy! Guess who’s back in town?” “Who?” Tammy was sweeping up the hair off the floor because her next client was already waiting on the couch. “Linda. Linda Holt. Remember her? That little cheerleader we coached for the Rec department? She was what? In fifth grade then. God, we’re getting old.” I froze. Andy’s Linda. Back in town. So it was true. Tammy stuck her head around and looked at me, then at Lisa. “You don’t say.” “Yeah, she’s graduated from the university now. I think my sister used to babysit her.” Tammy looked at me. “You don’t say.” I shrugged. Why did she keep looking at me like that? Did she know something? Lisa asked me, “Did you know her too?” I shrugged again. “In a way, yes. In a way, no.” “Well,” Lisa said, “you ought to get her in here sometime. All that pretty long, blonde hair.” Tammy leaned against the wall. “I’d put stripes in it.” “You would not!” “I could talk her into it. Couldn’t I, Meredith?” “Stripes might be fun.” Funny was what I was thinking.

When you sit in Pearl’s office by yourself, you hear the air conditioner cut on and off. You hear voices, a little boy’s and an older woman’s, maybe. That is your imagination. You hear the constant whoosh and whine of traffic on the highway. When you sit in the office by yourself, you see the scratches and nicks in the old desk. The dust on the rows and rows of books and King James Bibles. You see the laundry basket full of old, worn toys played with by children who now probably have grandchildren of their own. A lonesome room now, full of empty ghosts, but no longer a place of sorcery.

105 I sat there by myself, conquering the superstitions. Screwing up my courage. See? It wasn’t a haunted place anymore, at least not in the sense I’d once thought. There was a loud knock on the door. I opened it with my speech ready: “I’m sorry. Sister Pearl isn’t doing readings anymore.” It was a man I knew because I’d washed his wife’s hair while he sat carefully on in the waiting room, obviously uncomfortable. Mr. Tyler, in his usual work boots and farmer’s tan. Beside him was a woman about my age or maybe a year or two younger, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes wide. Mr. Tyler introduced her as his daughter. “She needs to get her cards read.” “I’m sorry. Sister Pearl has retired. See? The sign’s gone.” The daughter turned to go. Mr. Tyler said, “Please. Can you do it? She ain’t thinking straight, she’s so upset.” He leans in and whispers, “It’s that pissant boy she married herself to. Finally got up the gumption to leave him, but he called and whined and now she’s thinking of going back.” I’d figured as much. Common story. Pearl always said there are only two or three things people get so worked up about they ask the cards for advice. I said, “I don’t know what to tell you.” “We’ll pay you,” Mr. Tyler said, still whispering. “I know you don’t regularly do this.” He stood there like he didn’t have any plans to give up. She had walked a few feet into the yard and stopped, stooped over, worn out beyond her age. Mr. Tyler looked so concerned for his daughter. I thought of Dad. Not my own father, which was somebody I didn’t know at all, other than somebody Mom complained about constantly, but Mr. Sutton, who both Andy and Pearl called “Dad.” If he’d had a daughter, this was something he’d do for her. I looked back at the desk, where the tarot deck still stood, waiting. “All right. Just this once. But I will not take any money.” I sat her in the one of the wooden chairs and asked her father to wait outside. I figured she would be more apt to listen to me if he weren’t there. I still didn’t want to touch Pearl’s cards, so I pointed to the deck and told her to shuffle them, while I decided how I was going to do this, to help these people. What Pearl always did for a reading, I knew, was quite complicated. I didn’t know how to make that spoked wheel shape. I could repeat what Renee had done for me. It seemed so much more simple. And not

106 dependent on you being psychic. I asked the daughter if she’d ever had a reading done before. She nodded. “Well, I do it my way.” I hoped it would be convincing. I told her to cut the cards, put them back together, and spread them in a fan on the table. I never touched them. Then I told her to pick one. She picked The Empress. “Hmm,” I said. “Do you know what this means?” She said no softly, the first word I’d heard her say. She seemed too meek and mild, like someone who was used to being told exactly what she could or couldn’t do, and had accepted it. She seemed like a dog that had been mistreated, how they cringe at any unexpected noise or movement. That did not bode well. I kept my expression as normal as I could. I didn’t know what The Empress meant, either, and I didn’t want to dig through those old dusty, arcane books to find out. Who knows what I’d find in them? What hidden thing I might let loose. Imagination again, I told myself. Hard to keep a rein on it. But Renee said the books weren’t necessary. “Let’s study this card.” I pointed out the details of the empress herself, how she holds a scepter and sits on a pillowed throne by a stream. “She’s plump and proud of it.” The woman sitting in front of me looked eaten away by stress and worry. “She’s royal and pampered and deserves every bit of it.” I looked her in the eyes, hers searching mine for answers even though she already knew what she needed to do. That was the slumped shoulders—she was already resigned. “The Empress,” I say, “is the Empress. She’s in charge. She doesn’t let anybody step all over her. She fights for what she wants, but first, she makes sure it’s something worth having.” I know what I’m saying sounds right. The words flowing out of my brain were mine. I was not hearing them whispered to me from some being I couldn’t see. This was coming from the card, yes, but also what I could sense about her. This was intuitive, not magic. I thought Pearl would be proud. “Do you understand? Does this make sense to you?” The woman nodded, her eyes relaxing. She breathed in deeply and set her shoulders square. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll do it.”

107 I couldn’t believe it was that simple. Her parents and probably friends, if she had any, had probably advised her over and over to get out of that bad marriage, but she wouldn’t listen until some card she drew from a deck told her to. Spirits or not, it was still a weird business. When they were gone, I sat at the desk, listening again. Listening for any sign of the hisses and creaks I’d heard in that place before. There was nothing unusual. The window air conditioner blasted on again. The cards were still fanned on the desk. I took a deep breath. I stacked the cards and then fanned them back out for myself. I picked one. “Death.” Of course. Which meant change, the end of one thing and the beginning of the next. I’d heard Pearl explain that. Well, I already knew change, didn’t I? The damned card should just say “change” and not frighten everybody. Or it should tell you what the change will be. I put it back. It was obviously talking about what had already happened. I picked another one, and a rabbit ran down my spine. The Devil.

Chapter 10

That sent me into a tailspin. If tarot has nothing to do with evil spirits, then what was he doing in the stack? Then again, I was beginning to see how superstitious it was to believe in them. Back and forth. I still had The Eight of Swords in the bottom of my purse, because I hadn’t been able to give it back to Renee yet. Seemed like something I really needed to spend time thinking about. I knew Pearl used to tell her clients to go a month, at least, between readings. And then there was the whole thing about Linda, who apparently was back in town. So it hadn’t been a figment of my imagination to see her in the courtroom. And the sticky note. It had to be her number. So there was another thing to face: my husband was both a thief and an adulterer. Well. That was a complicated thing, though. Until I’d gotten myself pregnant, I’d been the other woman. I wondered if she went to see him at the jail

108 or in prison. I wondered if she went more than I did. I asked Renee if she had time at the end of the day to give me another reading. We sat on either side of the table, just as before. This time, she got out a light teal, glittery scarf and laid it across the table. What had at first looked like glitter, on closer inspection, was tiny silvery stars. She said, “You like?” I nodded. I did like. “What is this for? Do you always have to do this?” She sat down with her wooden box of cards. “That is a very important part. You have to do something to get your brain out of the everyday, usual crap. Something to get you into the right flow. Put your hands up over your eyes.” She did so, with her elbows up and out. “Breathe in a long four, hold four, and breathe out a long four. Do that until I tell you to stop.” So I did. And I told the tension, all the details of the day and my problems, to drain away with each exhale. She said, “Now reach up to the stars and stretch. Breathe in. Now breathe out and circle your arms down, and feel your feet press into the ground.” She snapped her fingers. “Okay.” She placed the box in the center of the cloth and opened it. “What did we do last time?” I reminded her about the Eight of Swords and how I wasn’t sure if it meant something personal or for my career. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Do you still feel like that’s the card for you right now, your present? Yes? Let me have it back, then.” Oh, yes, it still felt like the right one to me. I went and got it. She put it in the center of the cloth, took the rest of the deck into her hand, and put the box underneath the center of the table. God, there would be so much to learn to be able to do this. “So this is your present. Let’s see about your past.” She shuffled three times and then fanned the cards out in both her hands, telling me to pick one, any one that caught my eye for any reason. “That’s what we did last time.” “I know. Pick one.” I felt pulled to the right, to a card that showed a bit more of the star pattern on the back. The Emperor. “That’s a major arcana, which means it’s very significant. It—“

109 “A what?” I can’t stand not to understand something. “You got your four suits, just like in a regular deck of cards. Here, it’s wands.” She pulled one out and showed me. “Coins or pentacles, cups, and swords you already know.” “Pentacles?” I could hear my mother saying that was satanic. “Don’t get me started on that, I could give you a whole history lesson. Just think of them as coins, like money. And the way I learned it, cups are emotion, swords are fire symbols, and wands are air. Don’t try to memorize all that right now.” That was indeed what I’d been trying to do. It would take a really long time to learn all of this. “Now, the major arcana, those are the cards that aren’t in those four suits, and they’re, like, very, well, they’re sort of like Jungian archetypes. Like major steps in your life journey. So they carry more weight. So what this is saying here,” she tapped The Emperor, which she’d placed to the left of the Eight of Swords, facing me. “This is saying that your past has been controlled by this Emperor figure. Tell me what you see.” I saw an old man on a rock throne. The throne caught my eye first—it was very hard and cold looking, almost like it was made out of concrete. The man was wearing armor, but you could only see it on his feet because he was draped in red and orange material of some sort. Like he had a dress, or I guess the word would be a shift over his armor. The metal feet were very pointed. And on his left leg, the one where you could see the knee, you could see more of a side view, so you could see the Achilles area, and also the knee itself seemed more vulnerable because it showed. Also, the way the light was hitting that left leg, it seemed like you could see the leg bone. Over his shoulders and chest was draped what looked like a flag, mostly red with some black, and part of some circular pattern like a shield or crest half showing over the left shoulder. In that hand he held what looked like a big yellow-orange Christmas ornament with the hanging loop gone, but with that little stem sticking up. His sleeves were a rich royal blue sticking out from under the flag. You could see much more of it on his right side, and in that hand he held a short scepter with a circle on the top. On the throne at the end of each armrest was a carved ram’s head, which reminded me of stubbornness. Hard-headedness. On the top corners of the throne were ram’s heads turned to the side, which reminded me of sea shells, the way their horns curved around. The

110 Emperor had a long white beard and white hair and a gold crown shaped like a merry-go- round with red and blue stones in it. He was facing forward, facing “the camera” so to speak, but his eyes were turned to his right side, like something was going on off to the side or like somebody was sneaking up on him, or at least he was afraid of it. Behind him and his throne, the landscape could barely be seen, but it was bleak, barren, red. Like the mountains of Mars. I looked up at Renee without a clue. “Where’s your book?” “Forget the book. How do you think this relates to your past?” I got fear and emotional barrenness, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. “Hard- headed stubbornness.” “Well, be a little more literal. Is there or has there been a ruling male figure, an older man?” “Like my husband?” “Maybe, but probably older and going further back in time, I think.” “No.” “What about your father?” “I never really knew him.” “Could you say that he was like a distant ruler somehow, affecting your life even though he wasn’t there?” I just stared at her. This was getting a little deep and I didn’t see how it had to do with my marriage crisis or my developing career. Like I said, I never knew him. She continued, “I’m just saying. I know my Dad left us for his secretary’s cousin when I was little, so I know how that goes.” “Me and Mom got along fine. We never talked about him much. He just wasn’t there. It has to be something else.” “Okay, okay. Let’s go on to your future.” She shuffled the cards again, fanned, told me to pick one. This time I noticed one with a slightly frayed corner. The Eight of Cups. “Eight again,” Renee said. “What does that mean?” “I don’t know yet.” I wished she’d get the damn book out. A major arcana and two sets of eight. One sword and one cup. Cups were emotion. So much to learn.

111 “Study it,” she said. I saw, first of all, that the setting was night. The yellow moon was in the left corner of the card, and it was a kind of moon I remembered from senior literature class of all things. Some old, rhymey poem that had an old sailors’ phrase about the new moon with the old moon in her arms. That was what this was, a crescent moon with the full moon snuggled into the curve. The face of the full moon was looking down at a fellow with shiny brown hair, with a traveler’s cloak and staff, heading uphill toward some rocks and then the mountains in the distance (mountains everywhere in these cards. We weren’t in South Georgia, huh?). He was heading off to the right of the card. He was going to skirt the water, the lake. At the bottom of the card were the cups, stacked, five on the bottom and three on the top, but with space between the second and third where the traveler looked almost like a fourth cup. Or a ninth in total. Like he was headed out toward the next card. His back was turned to the cups. They were golden and shaped like an hourglass. Emotion and time. “I get this one,” I said. “There’s eight cups, which is a lot. That’s a lot of emotion, and he’s leaving it behind. He’s traveling, moving on.” I was afraid I knew what that meant for my marriage. And it really, really felt that that card was what was going to happen in my future. I could feel it. I had been feeling it. It was just a question of how to get all my ducks in a row to pull it off. I still wasn’t making enough to live on my own with a kid. I had to get those ducks in a row, or rather cups.

Moving on. And so the text message was expected. “Call me, J.” He was on duty when I got him, in a parking lot watching an intersection. I pictured him in his uniform then, so much more authority in his than in Andy’s. A small thrill ran through me. He wanted to get together again. Maybe dinner? I didn’t know if I was ready for that. Actually, let me be more specific. I wasn’t ready to go out in public with him again. “So,” he said, “how about pizza and a video? I guess we can’t do it at your place, huh?” He giggled. Being discreet was a little bit of a thrill, for both of us. So we had a date, then, for dinner and a movie at his place, the next night.

112 It felt like high school again, or the good parts of high school, when you were about to do things people your age ought not to do, but you knew it was going to be good. In the bathroom, primping and getting all ready, your head full of thoughts your mother, or in this case, mother-in-law, doesn’t have a clue about. But at least I’d never lied to my own mother about who I was going to be with. And she’d have told me to go do this, anyway. He brought this on himself, the prick, she’d say. Life’s too short to worry about pleasing the likes of him. Who the hell does he think he is, anyway, God’s gift? Pearl thought we were having a ladies night out, the girls at work. I dressed like we were going dancing, in that short jeans skirt, which still fit me thank you very much after all these years, and a newer black top, with a deep V-neck and glitter around the edge. I put my hair in an up-do and spiraled the ends. But I made it pretty loose, without too many bobby pins or too much hairspray. As I left out the back door, Pearl said, “Don’t you girls have too much fun, now.” She looked at me sternly, like a mother, and I didn’t appreciate it. I’d have as much damned fun as I wanted to. Then when I went to crank the car, I had a panic moment when I wondered if she knew, the psychic. Could you really retire from that? Could you turn it on and off at will? Could you ever tell what that woman was thinking, anyway? I was tired of trying to figure her out. I turned on the radio, looking for something rock and pop that I could sing to, belt myself into a good mood. The hell with Pearl. The hell with Andy. This was my night. But the song that came on was an oldie from the 1980s. Babe, by Styx. Not the very first one Andy and I had ever danced to, but the first important one. One of our songs. I recognized it as soon I heard those first diddling synthesizer notes. Andy and I had been dating for a couple of months by then. And I felt things getting deeper between us. The kisses longer, more exploratory, the hands lingering more, less desperate. I thought that night, the night of the last home game of the year, would be important. Andy’d graduated two years before but was still a well known face at the games, people shouting hey and what you been up to? His head full of glory days memories. He still had his football uniform, folded carefully in the top drawer of his dresser. We could hang around and go to the dance afterwards because nobody would

113 stop us from going in, not with who he was, and not with the amount of time I’d been spending around that school and that town, with him. We left the shadow of the stadium with the throngs, the two of us trying to work our way toward the gym, most of the rest of the crowd heading to their cars parked willy nilly all over the lot, but also in the edge of people’s yards and next to the train track, and at the insurance office across the street. Game nights were exciting. We had not sat in the student section, of course, but in the unofficial alumni section. And who should be two bleacher seats down and over to the right, but Linda and her boyfriend from college. I could feel Andy all night, forcing himself not to look at them, stiff and quiet. He’d cheer extra hard when the home team did something exciting, and when there was nothing much going on, I’d keep his attention as best I could. We just had to make it through the game. They wouldn’t go to the dance. No alumni did except for Andy, and that was just for me. So as we were leaving the stadium, trying to veer left toward the gym through all the rowdy football fans, somebody whammed right into my back and I stumbled hard enough that if Andy had not had my hand, I would’ve fallen. “Oh, God, are you all right?” It was Linda. She was looking at me, grabbing my other hand in concern. “I got pushed.” She pointed at some pre-teen boys rushing and pushing their way forward. Then she saw Andy, and I could see her work to keep her facial expression the same, neutral. We were a small circle of four by that time, the crowd flowing around us, not exactly smoothly. She said hey. He said hey. Her boyfriend looked unconcerned, confidant enough, and impatient, like he couldn’t wait to get out this podunk town and back to his vineyard or whatever. Andy had told me about his visits to see Linda in college while they were still together, the rich frat boys with Hummers or BMWs. How they looked at him, the Tech School attendee, like some beetle that had wandered in. Just before he’d called me up to ask me out, he’d broken it off with her, he said, because they just didn’t fit together anymore. But it didn’t feel that way to me, that night. “Okay,” she said with a forced laugh, “we’d better go. See you.” She waved. Andy waved. The two of them walked off, not holding hands or talking or even looking at one another. Andy and I walked on as well, not talking or holding hands anymore

114 either. But when we got to the gym doors, he held his elbow out to me and said, “Will you do me the honor, miss?” And it was a big relief. But we couldn’t quite get back on track, like a big cloud over us. We laughed, we danced, we talked with folks we knew from previous dances. But the cloud was still there. It was Eighties Night at the dance, which my Mom would’ve loved to have known ahead of time. She’d have talked me into dressing punk in some of her old clothes. Plastic parachute pants or something. But that song, “Babe.” So sad and yet loving. He held me close and sang it in my ear. And when it was over, and he suggested we skip out and go for a drive, I knew what it meant, and I was ready for it. The pecan orchard was the most deserted I’d ever seen it, because most everybody was still at the dance. He parked in the farthest corner, under a very old, drooping tree and a view of the moon on the pond. And that was my first time. The tentative, exploring, sweet time. And even though I knew why it happened that night, that he was trying to prove something, it was a triumph for me, because he lost his usual distracted air and was with me, body and soul and heart, and we made that night our own, and that place our own, and nothing he could ever do would make me forget the sweetness of that night, and the scent of burning leaves off in the distance, and that song echoing through my mind as Andy kept asking if I was okay, and if I was sure, and I’ll never forget his tenderness and consideration.

But I would have to move on. It was in the cards, wasn’t it? Damn that song, though. It was about leaving on a train. Foul timing. The glitter had worn off my mood. When Jeff answered his door, I felt like bursting into tears and running into his arms, but I just walked in past him. His place was spotless and 100% organized. He took my purse and put it on a shelf on the side of an end table. “You look hot,” he said. “The pizza should be here soon, I went ahead and ordered it.” He led me to the middle of the sectional, near where the wine and goblets rested on the coffee table. They seemed to just fit right into the whole house, as if they rested there in exactly that same fashion, permanently. Like if I moved a glass, he’d move it back. It might be fun to test it. But not right away. The wine was something red, and good. Andy only drank beer or the occasional mixed drink.

115 When the doorbell rang, I asked him where the powder room was. And it was one time I wished I was a man, so I could rinse cold water all over my face without ruining all that work on my makeup. As it was, I rinsed my hands, dried them on the white hand towel, and stared at myself in the mirror, right in the eyes. You will do this, too. This is for the best. Be strong. I was the caped figure in that card, leaving all the hurtful emotions behind, striking out for new territory. When I got back to the living room, Jeff was nowhere in sight, but I could hear him in the kitchen, getting out real dishes—I would’ve used paper for pizza—and some silverware, of all things. He apparently heard me come back because he called out to me to pick a movie from the cabinet. There were maybe a hundred he’d collected. “What kind of movies do you like?” he called out. I didn’t really know. I’d always watched what Andy wanted to. But Andy did like variety. He didn’t always like violence or whatever. He sometimes wanted to watch a “chick” film, and I’d always wondered if he was doing it to give me a turn. I wondered if Jeff would do the same. I thought about testing him about that, too, but again, it was too soon. He brought the pizza out on a platter, along with the dishes and knives and forks. “You pick one,” I told him, hoping he would choose something romantic. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen anything.” I was being deliberately ambiguous with that line. I sat on the couch and crossed my legs. He picked something with Jennifer Anniston, and I knew we were thinking along the same lines. “I think you’ll like this one,” he said confidently. “I’m sure I will if you will.” He smiled. I still had it. I hadn’t been out of the loop too long. He sat down close to me, but not too close. Close enough I could feel the heat from his leg against mine. Close enough that I wanted it to get closer. The movie began. Our pizza sat there and got cold. After a while, he looked over at me and leaned closer. It was what I’d been missing all these months. The kiss, the hand rubbing the small of my back, then the outside of my leg. This guy was good, even though it was our first time making out. Do you even use that phrase as an adult? I didn’t know. But this was what I’d needed, what Andy hadn’t been able to give me since he got himself in trouble. Since he’d ruined what we’d had. I was aware that all my juices and all my

116 hormones were running full force through me, aware like I’d never been with Andy, that this was biological. Just hormones and stimulation. Friction. And when he ran his hand up the inside of my leg, to my panties, I thought, that’s all it is. And the spell was broken. I pulled away. He pulled me back against him. “Wait,” I said. “This is going a little fast for me.” I pulled away again and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Oh,” he said, his face going unreadable. With one thumb he wiped my lipstick off the bottom of his mouth. “Well, I don’t see it that way.” He stroked my thigh near my knee. “I don’t think this is fast. How long have we known each other, Meredith?” I scooted a few inches away from him. “Let’s finish watching the movie.” I grabbed a slice of cold pizza and put it on my plate. I could see him watching me. I took a huge bite of the pizza and focused on the screen. Jennifer Anniston was doing something cute, with her guy looking at her intently like, ooh, isn’t she cute. I put down the plate. “Jeff,” I began. He was still looking at me again in that predatory sexual way. I didn’t have to be psychic to know where he wanted to put his hands, or where he wanted to put me, right then, that very minute. “Jeff, I’m not sure about this.” “Okay,” he smiled lazily. “Do you want some more wine?” He leaned both over the coffee table and closer to me at the same time, and refilled my glass. “No, Jeff, listen to me. Are you listening?” His back stiffened. He’d been insulted. “What, mommy?” “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jeff. I am a mommy with a small son. That has got to be my priority.” “I’d like to meet the little rascal sometime. Is that what you want?” Well, no, it wasn’t. I didn’t want Jeff to meet Sean, or vice versa. I hadn’t even thought to consider my son. What kind of mother was I? “I’m also a married woman.” “I know,” he said, leaning closer and rubbing my arm this time. “But is that what you want?” He rubbed the inside of my elbow. “What is it that you want, Meredith? What do you want right now?”

117 And that was the magic question. He repeated it several times, softer and softer, kissing me from the elbow up to behind my ear. Slowly. Forcefully. And I couldn’t help myself. It was just like Mom always said. Maybe it’s the moon, but something gets into you and it feels right. The Eight of Cups. The Devil. Whatever.

So for the next week and a half it went. Hiding phone calls and text messages, meeting in secret. He was always quick and to the point. “Lunch, my house?” Always slightly distracted, watching the cell phone for message alerts. I imagined it was taboo for him to be running around with the wife of a convict. His mind always on the next case or the next assignment. At work, Renee teased me. “Girl, why you smiling so? You getting some?” “Renee! What are you talking about?” Tammy and Trent both looked at me funny. “When are we going to have another meeting about drumming up more business? We never settled on a marketing plan,” I reminded them. Tammy said, “Marketing is apparently not my thing. I know, Trent, why don’t you handle it, since you have such a flair with the women. They don’t know the truth about you, do they?” Trent shot her a look. “This is really getting old, Tammy. I am not gay and you know it.” “I know you better face facts and move on, is what I know.” She stomped out. He practically threw his mug in the sink and stomped out, as well. I looked at Renee. She shrugged. “Trent’s a big puppy dog who cannot face the fact that his ex-wife, who divorced him, doesn’t still want him. Bugs the hell out of Tammy, for some reason.” “Speaking of which,” I said, “what’s with her lately?” Her fun sarcasm had been replaced by plain old bitchy sarcasm. “Bad news on the home front, I guess. My personal interpretation?” I nodded. “She’s trying to talk herself into filing for divorce. I don’t know why she doesn’t just bite the bullet and do it.” “That’s going around,” I said, a bit more cavalierly than I felt. “Not everywhere,” she said, pointing to her ring. “Have you given any more thought to what those cards might mean? The Emperor?”

118 “Not The Emperor. I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Around the house I hid my smile and avoided being too close to Pearl. If the guys at work could sense it, she definitely could. Unless she didn’t want to see it. In any case, I flitted around, making small improvements in the house while she watched more of the Game Show channel. I put new, fresh curtains in the kitchen, bought new and colorful placemats, rearranged the furniture in the den. “If you’re going to do all that,” she said, “then go ahead and move Mr. Sutton’s recliner back to my room.” That created a ton of space so everything flowed better. Pearl just shook her head at all my energy. I turned my back to her and kept working. If she wanted to stay depressed about all this, then that was her decision. That night, my mood was still so good I actually called my Mom. “You still living there?” she asked. “Just for now. I’m working full-time at a salon now. You should come see it sometime, it’s a really cute place and the people there are so nice.” “Good money?” “Good enough for an assistant. It’s just for now, Mom. It’s better than Wal-Mart.” “Well. We’ll see. How often you go and see him?” I told her where he’d been transferred, how far away it was. “You take Sean?” “Haven’t yet.” “Good. The boy will do better if he gets a clean break. And you too, Meredith. I tell you from experience, a clean break is best. Hey, let me talk to my grandson.” “He’s asleep.” “Already?” It was nine-thirty. “Well, fine then. You need to bring him out here to see me sometimes. Meredith? Did you hear me?” I mumbled yes. That wasn’t going to happen until I met whatever-his-name-was, checked him out. Sean needed male role models, I knew, but I didn’t want Andy to be replaced by something worse. Maybe it would be time soon for him to meet Jeff.

119 Tammy got downright chilly to me at the salon. Nothing but a formal hello in the morning, or a “Meredith would you mind sweeping up this hair,” or “Meredith, Mrs. So- and-so needs a quick rinse.” I was afraid maybe she knew about me and Jeff. Given her own problems, she wouldn’t approve. Plus, because of high school she might take Andy’s side over Jeff’s. Then again, she wasn’t being exactly friendly to Renee, either, and downright cruel to Trent. She’d barb him with some comment when a client wasn’t around and Trent would just ignore her. She had stopped calling our meetings in the break room. After about two weeks with Jeff, and me avoiding Pearl as much as possible, Pearl came into my room Saturday night, when I was just about to call him. He was on traffic duty again. “We should all go see Andy tomorrow. It’s not right for a boy to be without his father so.” She gave her disapproving look to me. I bit my tongue. Whose fault was it that Andy wasn’t here for his son? Or his wife? “Andy does not want Sean to see him in prison.” Pearl cringed. “Andrew obviously does not always think clearly. A boy needs to see his father. He thinks Andy has abandoned him.” “Andy didn’t want me to tell him he was in jail, so I didn’t. I’ll have to explain first.” “No,” she said. “I’ve already explained it to him.” So that was that, of course. She thought it ought to be done, and so it was. She missed church yet again to make the drive. She wore the same denim dress and sandals she’d worn to the arraignment. “Now,” she told me after we’d buckled Sean into the booster seat and closed his car door. “We need to make this seem like a normal thing so it won’t upset Sean too much.” I bit my tongue again. This was our normal thing now, wasn’t it? We listened to bits of movie and music coming from the portable DVD player hanging from the back of my head rest. And answered the expected questions about where this place was, how far how far now, now how far, etc. In between his questions, he told us what was happening on the Spiderman cartoon Jeff had bought for him. Jeff had wanted me to tell him that “Uncle Jeff” had gotten it for him. But Pearl had been standing right there as I took off the shrink wrap and

120 put the disk into the portable DVD player. “This is Spiderman,” I’d said. “He’s a superhero.” Sean said, “I know Spiderman, Mom. He fights bad guys with webs.” He demonstrated. If it hadn’t been for Sean, our drive would’ve been silent. But we should’ve watched the DVD before letting him watch it. I hoped much of the bit about college kids partying and ditching school went over his head. The extra-loud violence probably would not. Pearl asked me if I’d find something on the radio for us in the front seat, and Sean piped up with, “What the hell are y’all talking about?” We’d have to sneak that DVD away and get rid of it. It had been a nice thought, though. Jeff himself would like it. When we pulled up to the prison itself, its mammoth size depressed me, as it always did. Sean said, “Is that it? Is that where Daddy lives?” Then even he shut up. As we went inside, signed in, all that rigamarole, he hid behind me and wouldn’t speak to the guards and officers who spoke to him. One guy said, “It’s his first time here? Oh, well. He’ll get used to it.” Pearl sighed and walked ahead of me and Sean. So there we were, in a big echoey room with tables again, only this time we weren’t alone. This was the family reunion room, apparently. Andy was let in through a back door, and Sean went running up to him so that I felt guilty for ever agreeing to keep him away. Andy had tears in his eyes, and for the longest time, you couldn’t have gotten a greased spatula between them. Pearl nodded. She’d been right, as usual. Sean had needed this. She gestured to me to sit at the furthest table. We let them have their time. When they finally parted, Sean actually ran circles around him and hugged him again, and then told him all about the Spiderman video. That made me cringe, because we’d always tried to be careful about what we let him watch, but Andy didn’t even seem to notice. I wanted to listen in, because I knew Sean would ask Andy why he was in there, might even ask him if he was a bad guy, but Pearl actually engaged me in conversation then. She asked the most inane questions about working at the salon. I’d cut my eyes over toward the guys, but she’d ask me another question. She asked if she could come there sometime and meet everybody, maybe get her hair done. I looked at her. I’d invited her once before and she’d steadfastly refused. Why the interest now? Was she going to try to check up on me?

121 After Andy and Sean’s conversation had run its course, and they just sat, Sean on Andy’s knee, Pearl told me to take Sean outside. She wanted to talk to Andy first, and then I could have my turn. She stood, straightened the skirt on her dress, and marched over to him. I called Sean to me. We walked out in the front yard, looking at the boxwoods and such planted uniformly and generically along the front of the building and under the groupings of elm trees and river birches. Sean looking for bugs and worms, as always. “Hey,” I said, “what did you and your Daddy talk about?” “Spiderman,” he said, like that would be the only topic worth talking about. “I know that. What else?” He didn’t answer me, just poked in the pine straw mulch for bugs. “Look! A spider!” “Yeah,” I said. “Just like Spiderman.” He gave me a look beyond his four years. “Mom, Spiderman is a man. That,” he pointed, “is a real spider.” “Okay.” We walked to the next group of trees. “So what did your Dad say about living here?” He dropped my hand and ran around a bush, peered into it. I wasn’t going to get any answers from him. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. After about twenty minutes had gone by, Pearl came out and tagged me to go in. He was waiting for me, sitting in the front corner beside a window, looking out. He hugged me, and I didn’t feel so needy this time. He did. “So,” I said as we assumed our positions on either side of the table. “How’s it going?” “As well as can be expected. Next month they’re going to start some classes through the tech school. I think I’ll take one or two, just to have something to do. You know, keep my brain going. Your brain can really rot in here if you let it.” “Well, that sounds good. Classes in what?” “All kinds of things. Are you going to do that?” I had thought about it, but I didn’t say it. “I’m full-time at the salon now.”

122 “That’s good. You know what else they’ve got us doing here? Counseling. As in, psychologists. Not optional, either. It’s a bunch of touchy-feely bullshit. Sit around in groups and talk about our childhoods. Waste of time.” “Sounds like a good idea to me, counseling. What else are you going to learn in here, how to be a better. . .” I stopped. He looked at me, daring me to say it. His eyes were picking up a hardness they had never had before. “Andy,” I said, “what did you tell Sean?” “About what?” “Don’t do that, Andy. I know he asked you why you can’t come home.” He shrugged, slouched in his chair. “Told him I made a big mistake and had to stay in here for a long time.” “And that satisfied him?” “I think Mama had talked to him already. Have you?” “I thought you didn’t want me to.” He just shrugged again. “Did your mother tell you what she’s been doing?” “What do you mean?” “That she quit reading cards. Had me take the sign down and everything.” “Meredith,” he said, sitting forward. “She didn’t quit. She retired. She said it was just time and that you needed her to keep Sean so you could work. She’s okay with it.” “Okay? Andy, she was running off customers there at the end.” “Yeah,” as in, so? “They could be real dependent.” “I don’t think she’s okay. She quit going to church. She sits in her recliner in her room watching the game show channel all the time. I cook now, I clean, I shop. She does watch Sean, but not always carefully. I think she’s depressed.” He nodded, “Because of Daddy.” “Yeah,” I said sarcastically, “it’s because your father died.” The guard at the door glanced at me for my volume. The other conversations in the room never paused. “Well, it’s been five and a half, six years. Some kind of delayed reaction, I guess.” “I guess. Maybe you should write her some. Don’t make her come up here.”

123 “Maybe so.” He looked past my shoulder. “I ought to be a better son. There’s a lot of things I should’ve done different.” He picked at a scab on his hand. I looked past him at the clock on the wall. It was the same type of clock I remembered watching in high school, waiting for the bell to let us free. I was waiting to see if he’d make a gesture toward me. This was a sort of test for him, and he was failing.

Chapter 11

“Meredith, if you wouldn’t mind, would you please sweep before my next customer?” Tammy was positively pissy. Her next customer smiled at me sympathetically. Renee and Trent hid in their rooms, working on their own customers. After I took the customer’s check and made her next appointment, I followed Tammy into the kitchen. She was fishing around in her purse furiously. I poured a cup of coffee and sat on the far side of the round table. I said, “If you ever want to talk. . .” She apparently didn’t find whatever it was she’d been scrounging for. She sighed. She checked her cell phone for messages. Then she sat down at the table with me. “In general,” she said, “I’m done talking.” “Oh,” I said. She looked miserable, picking at her cuticles. I’d have offered her some coffee, but I thought she needed some food. Dark sunken circles under her eyes. Trent came in briefly, just long enough to get a drink from the refrigerator. Fruit and vegetable juice. Tammy shook her head. “You would drink that stuff, wouldn’t you?” Trent retreated back to his room. He mouthed “be careful” to me. “Men,” I said. She scratched her head and took a deep breath. “What about you and Andy?” “What about us?” “I mean, how is it working out?” I didn’t know what she was getting at. “I don’t know if it is working out.” “Why?”

124 “Well, he’s in prison, for one. Several counts of theft and fraud. Pleaded guilty. Won’t tell me a damn thing about it, won’t tell me why or did he even stop to think about me and his son when he did it.” The coffee was cold and bitter. “Plus, I think he might be seeing another woman. His old girlfriend again.” She looked up at me sharply and then kept looking, as if reconsidering me. “What makes you think that?” “Found her phone number.” “Did you call her?” “No. Lost it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Freak accident. Or Freudian slip. Whatever. I think she was at the arraignment, though. I saw her.” She considered this, nodding. “What does he say about it?” “As per everything else, not one damned thing.” I heard the phone at the front desk ring and went to get it and take an appointment down. When I got back, she had put on a new pot of coffee. Not what she needed. She said, “At least he’s not lying to you. That’s the worst thing, when you can’t get the truth and everything out of his mouth is just lies, lies, and manipulation. You’ve got the proverbial lipstick stains and emails to prove it and he just says you’re crazy and paranoid. Why can’t you just trust him. At least yours isn’t lying to your face.” “No. I guess not.” She had a point. I hadn’t asked him about Linda. I hadn’t looked at the sign-in sheets to see if her name was there. Hadn’t even thought about checking the computer or his cell phone for messages. I’d played ostrich. “I asked my husband,” she said the word sarcastically, “to move out by the end of today. I’m waiting for a lawyer’s office to call back with an appointment. I’m going to file as soon as possible.” I nodded. “Is he going to do it, move out?” “I don’t know. I hope so.” “Is he the type to cause trouble?” Pearl would let her stay with us if she needed to. “I don’t think so.” She bit a cuticle. “What I think is, I think he’s the type to give me what I want just so he can use it against me somehow. Passive-aggressive. That’s his type. He’ll move out just to humor me and then make me feel guilty for treating him this way. But this time, I’m sticking to it.”

125 Her cell phone rang and she made her appointment. And suddenly, she seemed calmer and more at ease, almost at peace. She’d made the first step.

So then, after two physically wonderful weeks with Jeff, the glamour started to wear off. I’d stare out the window, wondering what I was doing. Did I really think that being with Jeff would fix my problems? Had I been so blinded by my neediness that I hadn’t realized that being with Jeff wasn’t only me getting back at Andy, or even at my mother, but also at Pearl, who hadn’t done anything to me. Andy wasn’t a liar. I was. I was the one whose phone needed to be checked. Whatever I decided about me and Andy in the future, and I wasn’t ready to make that decision yet anyway, I couldn’t lie to Pearl anymore. The Eight of Cups I had apparently misinterpreted. I texted Jeff and suggested we bring a sack lunch to the park rather than meeting at his house, or as he had suggested once, a motel. My brain might be strong, but I wasn’t so sure about my body. He texted back, “Park? What can we do there?” Which irritated me. There were a lot of things we could do together besides sex. We sat at a concrete table with benches covered by a roof to keep off the sun. He unpacked his burrito and coke. “We’ll have to make this quick, then.” He took his cell phone off his belt and set it on the table. He sat stiffly in his uniform and all the equipment on it. His belt creaked with every move, the radio on his shoulder squawked. “Captain wants us to see some demonstration.” “Of what?” “Don’t know.” “What’s your favorite color, Jeff?” “What does that have to do with anything?” “Just wondered.” I took a bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A hundred feet away, children played on the playground while their mothers watched. I watched them for a while. “Jeff, I wanted to meet here at the park today to tell you that I can’t keep doing this. It just isn’t right.” “What?”

126 “This. Us. Just because one person is doing it. . . well, it just isn’t right for me to be with you at this point in my life. Maybe in the future, when things are more settled, but not now.” He stopped eating. “Why?” “Because I’m married, and because I have to be more of a mother to my son than I have been lately, that’s why. And because things are too chaotic and unsettled.” “And you think things are going to smooth out for you?” He couldn’t reach out and seduce me here, not in a public place with children and mothers. “I’m a married woman, Jeff.” “I know.” “And this was adultery.” Chastised myself for feeling a thrill at that word. “I know. But I also know who your husband is. I know where he is. And I know a lot of things about him that you probably don’t know. You deserve better, Meredith. And you know it.” “Okay, so you know some things. But you don’t know everything. You don’t know Andy as a person. You really don’t.” It was like there were two sides of him, what Jeff knew, what I knew. And of course an area of overlap. I wondered if Jeff had seen Linda at the jail. I wanted to know, but I didn’t want Jeff to be the one to tell me. “You don’t know him,” I said again, my voice weak with trying not to cry. “I know enough, Meredith. I know his type. I deal with his kind every single day. I know the parts of him you’ll never know, in the deepness of his heart. You cannot even imagine the things I know, the kinds of people out there walking around and the things they think. You have no idea. You’d be shocked.” I shoved the rest of my sandwich back into the brown paper bag and stood up. “My mother-in-law thinks I’m out with my friends when I’m out with you.” “I know. You said that.” “I’ve lied to her, Jeff. She’s the only one who has never lied to me, and I’ve just lied to her. While I’m living in her house and she’s always looking after my own child.” “Meredith, sit down. You just need to look at things in a different way.” “I’m not going to do this anymore, Jeff. I’m not going to be the one who betrays anybody.” Not anymore.

127 “Meredith, you’re being extreme.” His tone had a bit of warning to it, and that’s what galvanized me to get my purse and head for my car. “Thanks for everything, Jeff, really, but this is not going to work.” I walked to the parking lot, opened the door, and threw my purse to the passenger side. He’d followed me. He looked at the mothers on the benches. “You know,” he said quietly, “you always were a stuck-up little bitch.” I froze, stunned to see this side of him. He looked like the devil when he was mad. “You and Sheila, couldn’t be bothered by any of your own guys in Milton. Couldn’t bother to give us the time of day.” He was still standing a little too close. I didn’t want to sit down into the car and have him lean over me. “Sheila,” I said, “married Derek Willis.” “You know what I mean,” he said, backing up. “Go on, then. Go run back to Andy, just like he wants you to. See where that gets you.” He gave me a thumbs-up sign. “Hope it works out for ya.” He turned his back on me and walked to his patrol car. I slammed my door shut and got the hell out of there.

I knew I’d done the right thing, it felt right. And not like being with Jeff had felt right, biologically, but right as in having my feet on the ground. But I just couldn’t reconcile it with the card, the traveler leaving the cups behind, going off into the distance. The card just had to mean something else. Jeff left a voice mail the next day: “Give me a call, Meredith. I overreacted. I know we’ve got something between us. At least give me a call.” I was tempted to ignore it, you know, as stuck-up bitches would do, but then I decided not to be rude. To his voice mail, I said, “Jeff. We need to talk. Call me back or I’ll try you again.” And I waited throughout the day, shampooing my fingertips off, feeling both that I’d led him on, and that was my fault, but also irritated with him, then guilty for feeling irritated with him when it was my fault for leading him on. He didn’t call. I finally tried him again right before I left the parking lot for home. Home. “Meredith,” he answered. “Look,” I said, “this was all my fault. I didn’t mean to lead you on and then drop you, but I really should be trying to fix my own situation, and—“

128 “You mean that your beloved husband is in jail.” “Well, I can’t fix that.” “Damn right, you can’t. You weren’t the one who abandoned your relationship, Meredith. You’ve got to face the facts. He’s not good for you.” “You don’t know him like I do.” “And you don’t know him like I do.” I was tired of that innuendo. “What is that supposed to mean?” “Like, what he does or does not do with his time.” He paused. I could hear the traffic where he was. He must’ve been watching the highway. This felt like a game. “I shouldn’t bother you at work.” “You’re not bothering me, Meredith. I’d drop whatever I was doing for you, you know that, don’t you?” “Jeff,” I was starting to get exasperated. “I appreciate the time we’ve spent together, but this is not a good time in my life right now. I’ve got to find closure with all that’s going on and make some pretty big decisions.” “You ought to go up to the prison more. See who all goes up there.” “You’re not listening.” Jeff didn’t go all the way up to the prison. He wouldn’t know. “You know, anybody who wants to can come see prisoners. If the prisoner agrees to see them.” He would know about the jail, though. “Jeff, I cannot have a lot of distractions in my life right now. I’m sorry. Okay? I’m breaking it off now. I’m sorry I led you on, and I shouldn’t have.” “We’ll see. You just need some time and then you’ll come around.” I was trying to control my tone of voice at this point. “I’ve got to go to my home now, to my son and my mother-in-law.” “I’ll wait. You’ll be calling me before too long.” I hung up on him, I think. Or maybe he didn’t intend to say goodbye. That goddamned card had to mean something else. I dialed Renee’s cell number. “Renee? Can you teach me how to read the cards for myself?” “What’s wrong, Mer? You sound stressed out.” I told her.

129

Renee came in the back door the next day and motioned me to follow her. She reached in her huge embroidered shoulder bag and pulled out a new-looking box of cards. She tossed them on her table. “Here. This is a spare deck I never use. You can have them, if you want them.” And just for a second, that old fear was there, just a twinge, like an old whispery voice warning me to watch out what I get myself into. It sounded like my mother, so I pushed it aside. I asked, “Can I borrow a book?” “No.” She put her bag into the cabinet and sat down at the table. I still hadn’t touched the cards yet, still in their shiny little cardboard box with the ISBN number. Tammy called out from the front, “Renee, your appointment’s here.” “Just a minute.” She slid the box to me. “The first step is to study each card, one by one, I’d say no more than one card a day. Write down for yourself what you see, what it makes you think and feel.” “But?” I felt completely lost. I wanted a book to tell me what each card meant. How else was I supposed to learn? There wasn’t anything about this on cable television. Rachel Ray wasn’t going to teach it to me. I needed a book. “Look,” she said as she got her equipment ready. “This isn’t some hoo-haa mysterious supernatural ghosty thing, you know that, right?” I nodded, pretty sure I believed that. “It’s not some big scientific thing to be memorized, either. It’s archetypes and the subconscious and symbolism and intuition. Do you know what archetypes are?” I did. I watched PBS from time to time. “Then trust me. Get to know the cards yourself first.” I picked them up in my hands. I smelled the newness of the cardboard box. Felt the slickness. I found it hard to believe a brand new deck would have a lot of power. But maybe that was it. Maybe I had to make them mine through time and use. Maybe I had to wear the shine off them for myself. “Ask your mother-in-law if you don’t believe me.” I didn’t think I’d be doing that.

130

At home, I was contrite. After dinner, Pearl and I sat in the plastic lawn chairs on the back patio while Sean raced around pretending the gnats were aliens that were after his brain. “I know,” I said, “why don’t you let me do some landscaping in the yard?” “Still too hot to plant,” she said. “Nah, not if you keep them watered.” Pearl was depressed about her yard because she still hadn’t been able to find Hector, and she’d had to hire somebody out of the phonebook to mow. If she’d buy a lawnmower, I’d do it myself, but Mr. Sutton’s old tractor in the barn was in pieces, just the way he’d left it. I thought I knew why Hector had taken off. There was no word yet on when Craig’s trial would be, but the man had to know he’d be called to testify. And if he was supposed to testify, then, my brain deduced, maybe he was indeed the one who had turned Andy in. The police department had launched some new program to identify illegal aliens, it had been in the papers many times. Maybe Hector had traded information for them to look the other way. Maybe they had deported him anyway. Serve him right. “I know.” I said. “Let’s go get my Daylilies from the land. And I’ve got some African Irises and Dianthus and other stuff that’s too good to go to waste. What do you say?” Pearl looked at me. “That would not be a good idea.” “Aw, come on. Picture some right there, and right over here under your bedroom window. It would be so cheerful.” “I’ll give you some money, and you can buy some more.” “That would be a waste. They were so beautiful. I’d picked them out myself, all colors and sizes, some rebloomers. They’ll just get crowded out by the nut grass if we leave them there.” I didn’t want to abandon them there. Pearl sighed, stood up and walked to the barn. She came out with a shovel and an old blanket. “We go in your car, if you’re so set to do this.” Sean chanted “we’re going home, we’re going home” the whole way, while I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t home anymore, that it belonged to somebody else. The lot hadn’t been mowed in a long time, maybe since we’d left. The gravel driveway was grown up in grass and weeds, the yard itself knee-deep and ragged. “Where’s the house?

131 Where did the house go?” Sean said. I couldn’t even answer. It had left a ragged hole, no weeds or grass growing back there yet. Pipes sticking up from the ground, attached to nothing. It was like sneaking, trespassing, to go back there. It looked like the scene of a hurricane after clean-up had been done but before anything had been built back. Pearl had been right—it hadn’t been a good idea. But we were there. So we got out of the car. Nut grass had taken over so much, I could hardly tell where the plants were I wanted to save. I went mostly by memory. I dug them up in big clumps I’d have to sort at Pearl’s. I didn’t want any of the nut grass to get transferred. It would be like transferring bad luck. I really wished I hadn’t started the project this way. So I didn’t get all the plants I’d planned to, just a few. Just since we had come all the way out there. I left the rest to die, or survive. Who knew? Daylillies were tough. I wanted to go back home. “Sean, let’s go,” I hollered. He ran over and pronounced the clumps a “big mess. A big, dirty mess.” He was covered in the purple little bits from the bahia grass. I sighed and wiped dirt and sweat off my forehead. “Well,” Pearl said, touching me on the shoulder, “it’ll be real pretty when she gets it fixed up.”

I spread out the cards on top of the bedspread and, contrary to Renee’s wishes, read the little leaflet that had come in the box. Not very helpful, just two or three lines for each card. It did explain the difference between the major arcana, and the minor arcana. The minor being like the suits of cards in a regular deck, and the major being major representations of life stages. Okay. I got out the ones I’d drawn before and looked at them again. The Eight of Swords: yep, still felt that way, bound and blinded and hemmed in. The Eight of Cups: the one I had misinterpreted. Or maybe not. The moon, the new moon with the old one in her arms, if that was what it was. Looked like it to me. Bad luck for sailors. Should’ve paid more attention to that. The Emperor: that still had nothing to do with anything. The Devil: Jeff. Or, wait—temptation. Sexual desire. There were two nude people, a man and a woman, in chains. Renee had said to study one card a night. But first I wanted to look through them all. I found another one I should’ve drawn at an earlier date. The Tower. Lightening

132 striking an off-white tower and two people freefalling out of it. A disaster. Yep, that had already happened. It was time to get down to business. I put them all back in order and separated out the major arcana. The first card: the zero, The Fool, setting out on a journey not watching where he’s going, not noticing he’s about to step right off the cliff. Damn.

Pearl was sitting at the kitchen table, pulling on her hair. “I just cannot wait anymore. I’m going to have to do something about this. Make me an appointment with your people.” She stood up and came to look over my shoulder at the eggs in the frying pan. “What had you planned to go with them today?” “I don’t know. We’re out of grits. I can’t promise there will be an appointment today. Maybe.” “That’s fine. Tomorrow will work.” She rummaged in a cabinet. “How about pancakes?” Wow. The two of us cooking together. I went to Trent. “What you got open? Can you handle my mother-in-law?” “Of course. My specialty, as they say.” As luck would have it, he had a four o’clock. I was grateful. Trent had been taking a lot of afternoons off lately. His ex had moved to Sinclair with their kids. I didn’t know what Tammy would’ve done to Pearl, or vice versa. Pearl brought Sean up there with her. He had a couple of action figures to keep him occupied, but in a place like that, we’d have to keep an eye on him. I was nervous as to what Pearl would think about the place. She walked through the door carefully, like the bells on the door irritated her. She looked around in surprise at the décor and the display of jewelry, and then smiled. I was relieved. I took her and Sean right into Trent’s room on the side. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Sutton. I’ll be right with you.” He was finishing the neck of a thin middle-aged man. “Of course. I’m a little bit early,” she said, sitting regally in a wing chair. Trent’s room was much more sedate than the others. Beige walls. Wing chairs. Tan rug. Plain blue drapes at the window. He hadn’t let Tammy loose with the decorating.

133 Sean said he needed to go to the bathroom, which meant he wanted to see more of the place, so I took him. “This is where Mommy works,” I told him. After the bathroom, where he wanted to play with the feathers in the vase and hide behind the curtain below the sink, he wanted to see every room. I wanted to be in there with Trent and Pearl, to make sure everything was going all right, but I could see the power of Sean’s curiosity was going to take over. Trent brought Pearl back to the shampoo room. “Oh,” Pearl said. “Meredith, I wanted one of your massages. I’ve never had a shampoo like that.” I looked at Sean, who was pulling my hand toward the back rooms. Trent said, “I got him, Meredith. I’ll give him the man’s tour. Would you like that, little man?” I just hoped Sean would behave. I did my magic on Pearl, willing relaxation into her. This was easier to do on strangers. It was a bit weird to be so intimately touching my mother-in-law. Weird that she let me. I wondered, with this touch, would she see into my soul, my guilt? She lay back and almost went to sleep. Then I put on some deep conditioner for her dry hair. I wrapped the towel around her and sat her up. She sat there in an almost meditative state. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I took Sean back and Trent took Pearl to his room. “Sean,” I said, “don’t you want to go and see what Mr. Trent is doing to your grandmother?” “What’s that?” he pointed at the back room we used as storage. “That’s just a junk room.” His eyes lit up. “You want to see it?” Well, of course he did. I opened the door and just let him look around. Way too many things to get into— stacks of extra towels and bottles of chemicals and boxes of foil and gloves. Extra drapes and chairs and a zebra statue Tammy had discarded during one of her redecorating frenzies. Cans of paint, bright or earthy colors dripped down the sides. Sean pulled away from me and went in there anyway. He needed to stop doing that, pulling away. He was too old not be minding better. He went straight to the zebra, which came up to his shoulders. “That’s a zebra,” Tammy said from behind me. “If you want it, you can have it.” He wrapped his arms around it and started dragging it out.

134 “Tell Ms. Tammy thank you.” He did, without looking at her. We needed to work on manners again. “You’re welcome. So,” she said to me quietly. “That’s the dragon lady I’ve been hearing about from you and everybody else.” “In the flesh.” “She doesn’t seem so bad now.” “No,” I said, “not anymore.” Sean squeezed by us and dragged the zebra down the hall, across the lobby, and into Trent’s room to show his grandma. When Pearl was done, she had that usual satisfied-client look on her face, that pride knowing she looked good and felt better. Trent had done a really good job, had given her a better cut than she used to have, so that she wouldn’t have to curl it so tightly on the curling iron. It was more brushed out, stylish. She included a tip in her check and made a follow-up appointment, both of which surprised me. I introduced her to Renee and Tammy. She nodded at both, saying nice to meet you. To Tammy, she said, “You have a really nice place, here.” She took Sean and left. Renee said, “That was interesting.” Tammy said, “No, she’s not so bad. Just an old lady like any other. Trent’s specialty.” Trent groaned and went back into his room. When I got home, as soon as I walked into the back door, Pearl said, “I see why you like them so much.”

Chapter 12

“You were always the sweetest child in class,” Mrs. Suber said to Tammy, “although somewhat talkative, if I remember.” Her hair, wet, was thin, her gray roots looking even thinner, her scalp shining through. A salon will humble you before it builds you back up. When Mrs. Suber had come in, Tammy gathered Renee and me in there to meet her sixth grade Language Arts teacher. We sat in the wicker chairs while Mrs. Suber held court. I could tell Tammy really had fond memories of her.

135 “I talked about class stuff, though, when I talked. Mostly,” she said. “Mrs. Suber let me do my book report on Goosebumps. I went and read every one of them I could get my hands on.” Mrs. Suber looked in the mirror and asked me, “Who did you have in sixth grade, dear?” “Oh, I’m not from here.” “Where are you from?” “Milton.” She nodded. “I see. What about you, dear?” She looked at Renee. “I had Mrs. Brownlee.” “Oh, yes, she’s excellent. I believe she came very close to Teacher of the Year a few years ago.” “She was great. I remember reading this story about ghosts and clairvoyance in that class. It was really cool. And ‘The Most Dangerous Game.’ I remember that one. She read that one out loud to us, sitting in a circle in the edge of the woods, and it was one of my best memories of school. I don’t know why high school couldn’t be fun like that.” Tammy said, “You didn’t have fun in high school, Renee?” She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t say that.” I was trying to imagine what it would have been like if my teachers had let me read fun and interesting things. Trying to figure out why they didn’t. I know it was controversial how many books our school banned. Mom used to complain about that. Her boss was involved in the school board and had declared Huck Finn to be the most offensive blasphemy ever written. I doubted he’d ever read it. “Now, not counting me,” Mrs. Suber said, “because you two girls are so nice, and you want my business. But who would you say was your most inspirational teacher?” “Mr. Powell,” Tammy said. “Rock project, fourth grade. That was so much fun, going around and looking for what was in the pictures, being surprised you could find it right there in your own school grounds. It was like a big scavenger hunt.”

136 Renee said, “I’d still say Mrs. Brownlee. I got real interested in haunted houses and she let me check that kind of book out of the library. Even told me which ones to get.” Then everybody was looking at me. I had to be honest. “Well, I wouldn’t say a teacher was inspirational to me.” Truth was, all I remembered about teachers was their being stressed out and staying on top of the misbehavers and lecturing us constantly about test scores. And my sixth grade Language Arts teacher. Said that “slowly” was the verb in the sentence “The boy walked slowly.” Because the answer key in the back of her book said so. She had fingernails so long they curled back on themselves, so she never wrote on the board. I don’t remember reading or writing anything in that class. Just grammar exercises on photocopied worksheets. Over and over. And lists of vocabulary words you’d never encounter again in your life. Had to get test scores up. “I’d say my biggest inspiration was a lady in the public library. I used to read there all time.” I’d go there after school until Mom came and got me. And that’s where I found the books we never read in school. And when the paperbacks began to wear out, the library would discard them, and she’d give them to me. Mrs. Laird was her name. Officially, my babysitter, until I was old enough to go to Sheila’s after school. I guess that was junior high. I wondered if she was still there, at the public library, Mrs. Laird. Mrs. Suber asked me, “What works of literature did you all read?” “What works did I read, or what works did we read in school?” Because I could give her a whole list of books Mrs. Laird had suggested to me. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Lord of the Flies, even War and Peace. “I’m just wondering about the Milton schools.” I couldn’t remember a single one. I know we read some, I just couldn’t remember them.

Sheila said, “Yeah, this place is pretty cute.” She didn’t sound impressed, though. She sat with her hands in the pockets to her jeans, slouched back in the chair. I’d thought that Giggles would inspire her. The bright, cheerful green paint, the cute mural on the wall of Paris and café tables and the Eiffel tower. I wasn’t saying she would need to

137 decorate her dream restaurant that way, it wouldn’t fit the Mexican food, but still. I had thought she’d at least be interested. And I had thought she’d want to meet my new friends, too. She had met me at the salon, and I introduced her around. She smiled with tight lips, said “nice to meet you,” but kept her hands in her pockets. I thought I saw her snicker at the animal print drapes in the waiting area. Not her taste, I guess. Maybe she thought it was tacky. She picked at her cheeseburger and fries like they weren’t fixed the way she liked them. It looked like a plain, boring old cheeseburger to me. The least interesting thing on the menu. “So,” I said, “the other day Tammy’s sixth grade teacher came in, and they were talking about all these old memories from when they were in school. She asked me who my favorite teacher was. Who would you say was yours?” “I don’t know. That was a long time ago.” She stared out the window at the crepe myrtle, its late few watermelon-colored blooms swaying in the breeze. “I can’t even remember most of their names, can you?” “Not really.” “I don’t guess it matters, though. What matters is the here and now, and that we made it through.” She smiled and adjusted her pony tail, watching a middle-aged couple weave their way by on their way out. “There’s a lot people in here.” “Yeah, the place is still kind of new. And I think a lot of people come from out of town. Word gets around.” “Yeah.” She looked around. “Do you know anybody here?” “I don’t see anybody I know. Why?” “I was just thinking, it’s much friendlier to know your customers, and when they know each other. I don’t think I could be happy in a big-town climate.” She looked at me pointedly. “This is not a big town, Sheila.” She looked like she didn’t believe me. “You should hear how Tammy and Renee and Trent all complain about how small it is. They do know most everybody here. Hey, you know how we all used to come here to go shopping? Well, they all go to Sinclair or even Atlanta to shop. They say they can’t find a

138 thing here in this hell-hole, they call it. I just don’t know everybody because I’m not from here.” “You’ve been here four years, though.” “Four years of being a stay-at-home mom.” “Well, now you get out and about. At least there’s that.” I agreed. But I hadn’t made the point I’d wanted to make about the schools. “When y’all have kids, are they going to school in Milton?” “I guess so. We can’t afford to bring them here to the academy, can’t afford the time or the tuition.” “Yeah, I can’t send Sean there, either. But the public schools here are really good, apparently.” She didn’t respond. “Are the schools in Milton any better than they used to be?” “I guess.” She actually shrugged. She just didn’t seem to see how important this could end up to be. “Sheila, do you think we made it through okay?” “What?” “I was just thinking, when Tammy and them were talking about how their teachers inspired them and encouraged them.” I pushed the bean salad around on my plate, searching for how to say it. “We used to have such big dreams, you and I. We were going to leave our hell-hole and make something of ourselves. And I just wonder, if somebody had encouraged us. . .” “We thought we were going to Los Angeles to be in music videos—“ “That’s not what I meant.” “We were stupid little kids who watched too much television. And everybody from a small town wants to go to the big city and be a star.” “Not everybody. But what I meant was. . .” “It’s a pipe dream, Meredith. Grow up. Why do you still hate Milton so much? I’ve gotten over it.”

139 “There’s nothing there, Sheila. Don’t you think you could do so much better for yourself and your family if you just came here to work? You could still keep your farm, it wouldn’t be that far of a drive. But there’d be so many more opportunities.” “That may be true for you, that there’s nothing for you in Milton. What is your mother doing now?” I told her, in as much of a summary as I could. “Well, I’ve got my grandparents there. My brother and their kids. My mom and step-dad. I couldn’t get by without their help and they couldn’t get by without mine. That’s family, Meredith. We’re there for each other. Right there. And my job is fine. And you know what, you may be right, that my idea about the restaurant may never work out. We may never make it, or old Burt might never bite the dust or retire, or it might go under because there just aren’t all these goddamned people.” She reached for my hand as a group of five squeezed by on their way out. “Meredith,” she got that old tone in her voice, that I-know-what’s-best-for-you tone. “I think this town has put some weird ideas in your head. Everything doesn’t have to be big and growing all the time, always going somewhere. That’s what’s wrong with this country.” She reached back for the sweater she’d brought and draped over the chair. “Don’t forget where you come from.” She looked at her watch and said she needed to be going. I got the check, and she thanked me for the ‘”nice lunch.” I drove her back to the salon, where she’d left her car. “Why don’t you come visit me in Milton more often?” she said, and then with my car door open and one of her legs already out, she turned back. “Because, not to be mean, but if Ballard was all that great, and the schools so great, and the teachers and all, then would your friends be hairdressers, still living here and complaining about it? And, honey, what about Andy? Would he be where he is?” I was stunned. “I’m sorry. But really, Meredith, maybe working outside the home will help you, you know, have a more mature outlook.” She got out of the car and straightened her shirt. “Come see me. Burt will let us lunch for free, I’m sure.”

“I still think we could use a little more business in here,” Tammy said. She was straightening and rearranging the bead jewelry she’d started carrying in the front display

140 case. Hand made by somebody she knew in town, a new client. I was sweeping the floor in her station. “I don’t know,” I said, “breaks like this are kind of nice. We can get caught up.” “I like this one.” She held up a black corded necklace with a large disc of tortoise shell and three shiny crystals, one above the other. Striking, but tasteful. She’d put some honey-colored stripes in her hair. “I think I’ll have to get this one for myself. David would never have let me have it.” She should never have had to ask him for anything. She had been the one making all the money and making the house payments. We worked for a while in silence, me chasing stray hairs around with the broom and her fiddling, arranging and rearranging. She said, “I think maybe I want to move this display over there.” She pointed to the wall under the front windows, “and move the sofa somewhere else. What do you think?” “Like where?” It was a bit distressing, the way she wanted to keep changing things around. She walked around the room, nodding and then frowning. Everything looked fine to me. The display was next to the cash register, where it would catch people’s eye as they were feeling good about themselves and pulling out their wallets anyway. Made business sense to me. The sofa should stay right near the door, in the waiting area, with the pretty windows looking out on the front flower beds. “I think it’s right just the way it is,” I said. “But that’s just me.” I finished and put the broom away. She started straightening and wiping her counter area in her room, wiping the curling irons and the counter and the mirror. She seemed dissatisfied with the way that was arranged, too. I said, “Let me ask you something.” I started helping her wipe just to get her to stop at some point. “When did you know you wanted to be a stylist?” She bent over to get a new can of mousse from the cabinet. “Oh, god. College? I mean, even before that, god even in junior high I’d spend hours and hours doing my own hair and everybody else’s, and giving them makeup advice, and so on. But I went to college, not technical school. Guess what I majored in.” Her question had a hint of sarcasm.

141 I had no idea. “Psychology.” Can you believe it?” She pulled her hair out to the side between her fingers, checking the symmetry of the length. “I wanted to be a therapist.” I sat down in the wicker chair. I could indeed picture her as a therapist. She turned to face me, leaning back against the counter. “And then I got this brilliant idea.” The sarcasm again. “I thought, you know how bartenders are considered therapists in a sense? Well, aren’t stylists as well? Don’t we take somebody and listen to their problems and their plans and make them feel better by the time they leave? So I thought, why not combine the two? A licensed stylist who is also a licensed therapist.” It did have a sort of logic to it. “I started taking classes at both the college and the tech school. You know, Developmental Psych Two and also cosmetology.” “So what happened?” She sighed. “I met a man. My first husband. And got bored with tests and research papers and memorizing a bunch of terms and information and blah, blah.” “Do you think you’ll go back and finish one day?” “Maybe. I just needed three more semesters for my Bachelor’s. But god, the thought of a Master’s. I don’t know, though. I still think it would work, to combine the two.” “Hey, you could call it Head Games!” She looked in surprise. “Head Games. Brilliant. You have a knack for business, Meredith. You should go into marketing. You ever thought about that?” “I don’t know what I want to do.” “What are you interested in?” “That’s the problem,” I said. “Too many things. But none of them school.” “Well, you seem like the book type to me.” She checked her nail polish. The traffic zoomed by outside, nobody stopping in. The air conditioner came on, sounding like a plane cleared for takeoff. She walked into the front room to pull the drapes a little closer to each other. The late afternoon sun blazed through the fabric. “Actually, Tammy, I don’t think that combination would’ve worked.”

142 “Why not?” She rubbed at a spot on a drape. A spot that probably wasn’t even there. I kept myself from shifting in my chair, and instead chewed a nail briefly to seem nonchalant. But I was sure about this. “Because therapy costs, what? Like, two hundred an hour, I read somewhere. If people come in for a thirty-dollar haircut and style, they’re not going to trust your expertise in psychology, even if you hang your license on the wall right in front of them.” I really wanted to shift, the air was blowing right on my left leg, which was going to start cracking from the freeze. She sighed and walked back through her room and opened the door into the kitchen. “You’re right, I’m sure. It was a silly thought.” “No,” I said, walking in behind her, my brain going a mile a minute. “It just doesn’t make business sense.” I closed the air register in the floor just a tad. “But I’ll tell you what would work. Because it costs about the same.” An idea was really taking shape in my mind. “Tarot. That kind of counseling. Same kind of idea.” “It is not the same kind of idea, Meredith, not at all.” She poured her coffee down the drain and began to wash the cup. “Well, I know you don’t agree with it.” “It’s New Age hoo-ha.” “It could give an interesting twist to your business.” “Oh, god.” “And my mother-in-law has left a job opening in this town. I’m learning how to do it. You wouldn’t have to. Renee and I could.” “Renee won’t charge for it.” “I could.” “I would lose half the clients I already have!” “Not if we didn’t make a huge deal about it. Like, maybe that storage room in the back. Set that up.” She looked at me. “you have obviously thought this through. But I don’t like it. Makes my skin crawl. Makes my eyes roll up in the back of my head. You do that kind of thing in Sister Pearl’s house if you want. Not in my salon. Now why don’t you put that little business-minded wig of yours to use and come up with a better idea. In the

143 meantime,” she walked to the front display case and got out the tortoise necklace. “I’m going to wear it home. Nobody but the cat to disapprove.”

Chapter 13

The next day, after her appointment with the divorce lawyer, Tammy told me all of her complaints against David. The emails to multiple women, the charges at jewelry stores (how creative) on the credit card, and his casual carelessness in not hiding these things. It was like he wanted to get caught and have a big argument about it. The lawyer told her the proceedings would either go smoothly, if David cooperated, or get really ugly, if he didn’t. When Linda came into the salon, as a walk-in, Tammy glanced and me but then she and Linda hugged and said “Hey, how have you been?” and “It’s been so long,” and all the long-lost cheerleader rigamarole. God. Andy and Linda were both from Tammy’s high school. I wanted to sneak back to the shampoo room and hide. But then, I wanted to look Linda over, too. Because of course I hated her. And at the same time, I didn’t. I had been the one to break them up for good. The high school sweethearts. I hung back in the hallway with Renee, who of course didn’t have a cheerleader bone in her body. She and Linda nodded hey to one another. Tammy brought Linda to me, of course, to shampoo her. “Oh,” Tammy said to her, “this is Meredith. She—“ Then she paused and thought better of bringing up the subject. Linda should’ve recognized me, anyway, but she didn’t seem to. Was it an act? Tammy said, “Well, she’ll get you washed. She’s the best—does this massage thing on your scalp.” So I did the massage thing on her hair, a strong but brittle, brassy yellow tone with roots beginning to show. She was still quite pretty, with sharp features maybe a bit too small for her face. A smudge of lipstick was on her front teeth. I tried not to think of Andy kissing those lips. Back then in high school or now. She said, “I shouldn’t have waited so long to get it done. But I just recently moved back.”

144 I said, “Hmm.” She was going to need some deep conditioning. I wondered how long she’d been bleaching it. If Tammy sent her straight in for a shampoo, she wasn’t here for that. “Is it good to be home again?” She sighed. “I guess. Time will tell.” “This relaxation technique works better if you stay still and quiet.” “Oh.” I could think of all kinds of things I could do to her in that situation. For example, her ivory white neck was exposed. I had all sorts of hair chemicals at my disposal. But that would be immature. And mean. And bring only temporary satisfaction, while there could be career ramifications. Better she run and tell all her old buddies how good I was. I tested the rinse water to make sure of the temperature, rinsed, spread in some deep conditioner that smelled like a mango colada. When I sat her up, the towel wrapped around her head snugly, she said, “Wow” and flashed her white smile at me. Everything about her said privilege. College. All that. I sat behind the counter while Tammy cut her hair, listening to their chit-chat about school and ball games, both of them carefully avoiding mentioning Andy, though I thought they both were thinking about him. She must have recognized me after all. Either that, or what he’d done now made him a non-topic. Or maybe she just didn’t talk about him because of the way things had ended between them. That was hopeful thinking, though. Things hadn’t really ended between them. I kept thinking just what I used to when Andy and I first started dating, and he and Linda had just broken up. I wished I was as pretty. I wished my teeth were as white and straight. And I wished I had that ease, that finesse that never met a stranger and could safely assume everybody liked me and was on my side. And in that moment, that’s what I hated her for, for making me feel like that.

“Mom, do you want your hair done, or not?” My mom was standing just inside the door, glancing around at the décor like she was allergic to it or it might bite. “Can’t I come to visit my only daughter? We haven’t talked in weeks.” “I called you just the other day.” “My, my. A phone call.”

145 “Sit down for a minute until I can take a break.” She sat stiffly in the near corner of the sofa with her back straight and her big blocky purse held close to her side. I took our teenage client to the back. She had wide orange stripes in her hair I felt sure would run and then wash out as soon as I put water on it. Still, it looked fun, daring, that hair style. Mom would disapprove. Afterwards, I came and sat down in the side chair. Mom said, “Can we go outside? I need to talk to you about something.” She glanced into Tammy’s room, where Tammy was doing a frost job on a woman about Mom’s age. I walked her out the front door and around to the side, where Tammy had just bought a cute wrought iron bistro set to put under the oak tree. Mom said, “It’s like five hundred degrees out here.” She sat her purse in the empty chair beside her, glancing around the neighborhood. “It’ll be fine there, Mom.” “You never can trust these big towns. You do lock your car doors at all times, right?” She took out a cigarette and lit it. A cardinal perched on a limb and tried to decide if it wanted to come close enough to get to the birdfeeder. Mom sat taking long drags and stalling. I didn’t feel like being patient with her dramatics. “You’ve come to tell me that you broke up with what’s-his-name, right?” And you’re bored and restless and don’t know what you are ever going to do now, etc, etc. “Right?” “No. I mean yes, but that’s not why I came. How did you know?” “I can read the signs.” “Okay, that’s what I mean. I heard a little birdie say you been taking over the fortune telling from that woman you’re living with.” “Mom, you make it sound like--” “Wait, let me finish what I came to say.” She dropped her spent butt on the ground and twisted it into the grass with her foot. She got out another one and lit it. “That stuff is wrong, Meredith. It’s dangerous. The Bible says it’s evil, dealing with spirits and sorcery.” I tried to stop her.

146 “It’s witchcraft, Meredith, and it’s a sin. I don’t like it. And I don’t like my grandson being exposed to it. You’re an adult now and I guess you can do whatever you want, except you should think about your child, Meredith. If you’re not worried about your own soul, then you at least ought to worry about his.” The bird had finally decided to come down to the feeder, hanging from a branch about five feet away. She shooed him, muttering “damned things shit everywhere.” I was trying to keep my cool. Who the hell was she to criticize my mothering skills or to criticize Pearl? “Mother, you’re right about one thing. And one thing only.” I stood up and brushed off my rear end. “I am an adult. I can do what I want. And what I want is my own business.” “Well, it’s wrong and it’s dangerous.” “You said that already.” “It’s irresponsible of you as a mother. For once you should listen to me. Maybe it’s a bad idea for you to stay with her. Maybe it’s a bad idea for you to be in this town, around these people,” she cast a glance toward the salon. We were pretty near the window to the kitchen, and the old windows weren’t sealed very well. She pointed at me with the cigarette between her fingers. “Maybe you ought to come back home after all, spend some time getting yourself together. Getting your head straight.” She finished one last drag, threw the butt on the ground again, twisted it into the grass again. “Think about it.” She began to walk back toward the parking lot, showing me her anger and righteousness instead of saying goodbye. I bent down, picked up her butts, with her scarlet lipstick stains, and carried them through the back door to the big kitchen trash can. Threw them in there along with the scraps of hair and foil and used coffee filters. Goodbye. I grabbed a broom and headed to the shampoo room, my domain in the salon, for some good, vigorous cleaning. Tammy had her frost client in there, rinsing the solution out and putting in a nice toner to cut down on the brassiness. Then Tammy was toweling her hair, trying to talk her into some new cut. “It won’t be all that different, just a little bit more body and fluff. Not so much of a tight perm. It’s the new style.” For at least a decade now.

147 “Oh, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t work with my hair. I’ve had it this way for so long now I don’t think I could even force it to do anything else.” Tammy met my eyes. We’d all had this conversation before, many times. Southern ladies set in their ways, with the old fashioned perms, like throwbacks to the 1950s housewives. The Poodle Helmet. As opposed to that other Southern housewife look, which wasn’t tight curls brushed through, but swoopy waves, big hair, sprayed heavily in place. The Judy Jetson Helmet. May as well give up trying to get her to try anything else. Tammy asked me, by way of changing the subject I guess, “Everything all right out there?” I stabbed the broom at a dust bunny in the far corner. “Just yelling at me again for living with my mother-in-law instead of with her. Thinks my everlasting soul will go to hell because of Pearl.” I said to the client, “My mother-in-law is Sister Pearl.” I had thought the information would lighten the situation. But the client sucked in her breath and then said “oh,” long and drawn out. “Dear,” she said, “your mother is right to be concerned. The Bible very clearly forbids messing around with such as that. It’s a form of witchcraft, it’s sorcery. So you see, dear, your mother just wants what is best for you. I know you young people don’t realize how serious it is.” Tammy said, “Why don’t you go on to my chair and get comfortable. I’ll be there in a minute.” On her way out, the lady turned back to me and said, “Listen to your mother. She knows what’s best.” When she was gone, Tammy turned to me and said quietly, “That does it. You can have the back room. Set your little business up and go to it.”

It took a bit of doing to get the room ready, since it was unfinished. We simply moved all the extra supplies into the actual storage room, the other “back room.” Tammy hired somebody Trent suggested to sheetrock and install a small chandelier. Renee took some convincing. “I don’t think I want to read cards for money or for strangers, only friends.”

148 “It’ll bring in extra clients,” I said. “Add to our offerings. C’mon, didn’t you say that to be good you have to practice? Think of it as practice.” Tammy said, “Me and Trent will make them look pretty and you help them get their lives together.” “But none of us is trained in therapy, Tammy. Why are you suddenly all for this hoo-ha stuff as you’ve always called it?” “We’re not claiming to be therapists.” “Or psychic,” I added. “We just show them the cards and let them talk about their problems, like a bartender, you know. They’re not trained. Even preachers aren’t really licensed psychotherapists, for god’s sake.” “And,” I said. “It’s our gimmick, what makes us different from the other salons.” “But won’t it turn some people away?” Tammy said, “We’re not going to advertise this. Word of mouth only.” Well, once Renee was convinced, she was all into it. She and I drove to Sinclair and picked out the lavender paint and gauzy window sheers. We bought a table at a yard sale and covered it with Renee’s batik sarong. Two folding chairs, one on each side of the table. It was pleasant, froo-froo in a fun way. That was psychological, Renee said. The room needed to look like something they wouldn’t have in their own house. She sighed and said, “I still don’t like the idea of charging a fee for it.” “Renee, I’m telling you. They won’t think they’re getting anything worthwhile if they don’t have to pay for it.” “Thanks a lot.” “I don’t mean friends, I mean everybody else. Even at carnivals and fall festivals when they’ve got somebody dressed like a gypsy with an old eight ball, you still have to pay for it.” “That’s what I mean.” Trent stuck his head in and shook it. “Far too much estrogen in here for me.” Tammy said, “Oh, really?” Tammy liked the room’s feel.

149 The next people who called Pearl’s house wanting to make an appointment, I told them about our salon’s new service. I said it quietly, not wanting Pearl to hear. Anyway, it was far easier than just turning them away, like I had been doing. For the most part. Of course, if Pearl wanted to go back into business one day, that might solve some of her problems, not having her office right there in her house. She could set up whatever hours she wanted at the salon and not feel obligated to drop-ins because she wouldn’t be there. But as long as she was still so frustrated and angry about it all, I didn’t want her to know I was taking over her business. I’m not psychic. She doesn’t seem to be, either.

150 THE EMPRESS

Chapter 14

Renee’s client had told us about her daughter’s senior recital at the university. “Y’all come see it. She’s got a solo and she even did some of the choreography.” Renee, as she was painting the lady’s fingernails a nice peachy pink, said, “You know, I’d like to go to Sinclair anyway.” She called Tammy back to her room and we decided to make a whole Sunday of it and shop, see the performance at the university in the afternoon, and stay in town for dinner. Ladies’ road trip. Trent would already be in Sinclair to see his kids. He might meet us at the theatre. If his kids wanted to see the performance. But we shouldn’t count on him being there. Tammy nodded grimly and didn’t say anything. After the mall, on the way to the university, Renee wanted to stop first at a little shop called The Sliver Moon. It was on a side street in a renovated little old brick house. “You’ll love this, Meredith,” she said. “Tammy, you can wait in the car if you want to.” “No, I’ll go in. I like the jewelry in these places.” It was a shop like I’d never seen before, never known anything like it even existed. Full of statues and rocks and crystals, essential oils and incense and of course case after case of jewelry. There were drums and flutes of various shapes, sizes, and with various carvings and decorations. Rows of meditation CD’s. Racks of scarves and loose, flowy clothing in pastel or batik patterns. The ceiling covered in mobiles hanging from every square inch, twisting and sparkling in the breeze from the air conditioner. Walls lined all the way around with bookshelves, covered with colorful books. More of Renee’s New Age trance-like music. The incense was burning heavy, a sweet, spicy scent permeating the whole place. Tammy headed for the jewelry cases while Renee brought me to a shelving unit I thought at first had more books on it. “Look. Just pick one.” They were boxes of tarot cards. And I saw ones like mine, which Renee said were considered the standard deck. But she showed me dragon cards, and fairy cards, earth cards. It was amazing. An animal oracle. One with carved sticks instead of cards. “These

151 are all different forms of divination,” Renee explained. Divination. As in, divine. It was fascinating. And overwhelming. She must have seen that in my face. “Just stick to the ones you’ve got, first.” The whole place, to be so cluttered with stuff and with patterns—there was even a paisley-painted floor underneath all the cases and racks and shelves—was nevertheless having a very calming effect on me. Maybe it was the incense. I bought some based on Renee’s suggestion. Simple scents with lavender and vanilla. One risky splurge called Nag Champa which was Hindu. I bought it to spite my mother. I also bought a copy of the CD that was playing. Renee bought cards based on paintings of ancient goddesses and a ring with a large green stone. She also bought various essential oil blends—one for third eye or intuition, one for revving up your love life. Tammy scoffed at that. She bought a necklace with a large moonstone pendant. I was fascinated. I felt I was on the very edge of discovering a whole world of texture and color and ideas. I would come here sometime by myself and spend hours, just hours learning what all this stuff was. My senses were reeling. But I felt calm. I’d also never been to a performance hall like the one at the university’s Fine Arts Building, an auditorium that fancy and acoustically balanced, as Renee said. There were hundreds of people there, some dressed like we were in black slacks and our nicest sweaters, and some in sequins and tuxedoes. It was exciting. I still smelled the incense on me, in my clothes. This was turning out to be quite a sophisticated outing. The house lights went down and all the chatter stopped. The curtains opened slowly to yet more interesting music, soft and soothing but also with a tribal beat. Stage smoke swirled below a full moon as three male dancers with long bamboo poles danced on the stage, tapping their poles to the beat of the drums. Female dancers then wove in and out of the male dancers, who stood then like sentinels, the females like water flowing around reeds or like the scarves they then brought out and danced with. They were honoring the moon, according to the description in the program. The intensity grew along with the number of dancers on the stage, the movements growing from near the ground to soaring leaps and jumps and fast spins. Then the music and the dance slowly ebbed, until

152 one lone dancer was left on the stage. She set a lit candle in the center and wove a pattern around it. Then she blew the candle out and there was silence. We were all blown away. In another piece, a sad melody with piano and violin, the dancers danced as if in melancholy or grief. The program called it “Elegy.” Our client’s daughter then danced the part of a child on the playground, playing with a ball by herself, weaving and throwing and scooping it in arcs and circles. Then another dancer was her playmate for a while, and I wouldn’t say they threw the ball because that wouldn’t be the right word, but they danced the ball back and forth and ran patterns of sheer joy. Then the other dancer heard a call offstage, like maybe her mother’s call, and had to go, leaving our soloist playing alone once again. The finale was a tribute to Modern Dance, according to the program. Dancers wearing all white, with their skin and hair painted all white, imitating moving statues, some even covered entirely in cloth, like very modern, abstract statues, using their arms and legs and hips to create oddly beautiful and truly interesting shapes. When it was over, the entire audience gave a standing ovation, and I found myself rising with them as if in a dream. An automatic reflex. It had all been just beautiful. It had been beauty. It was soul. And everyone knew it. We felt it. I wondered if Andy had ever seen anything like that. I knew he would appreciate it. He had that kind of soul, too. As we filed out of the auditorium, I was glad I was last among the three of us. Tammy and Renee chatted happily away about how well the girl had done, but there were still tears in my eyes. I was filled with something I couldn’t name, but it had to do with desire. Yearning, destiny. I wanted something. I wanted to participate in beauty like that. In creating. Somehow. I could feel it was in me. The feeling stayed with me through dinner at the Greek restaurant, where they remarked on how quiet I was being, for once, and it stayed with me on the long ride home, me staring out the back window at the full moon on the fields. I could picture the dancers in the fields in the moonlight, being and giving their beauty and soul and harmony. I hadn’t known I had missed that. I called Mom that night. “I just wanted to touch base, see how you were doing.” “Have you given any more thought about what I said the other day?”

153 “Yes, but I’m not going back to Milton.” “Here we go with that again.” “This is temporary, Mother, where I am right now. I just need some time to figure out what it is I want to do.” “It’s just as well. Milton may not be the best place right now.” She waited for me to ask. “What now?” “That Wal-Mart is going to bring a lot more undesirables, is what I say. Who knows what is going to come of it. Did you know I was the only white girl still working for him? The rest are all Mexicans. They talk and carry on so, I have no clue what they’re saying.” It sounded so racist when she said things like that. God. And people who think like that always think you want to hear about it. “Mom,” I cut her off. “Would you have let me take dance lessons when I was a kid?” “What?” “We went to Sinclair tonight and saw the most beautiful dance performance. It was just. . . beautiful. . .There’s got to be another word but I can’t think of it.” “Dance? You mean like little girls in pink tights and those pink little cutesy shoes? Point the toe here, point the toe there? There’s no place in Milton that does that. Besides, I didn’t raise you like that.” “I know.” I know.

“We got one.” Renee stuck her head in while I was shampooing. A teenage girl followed her to the back room. I finished my customer, wrapped her up, and sent her back to Tammy. Trent had taken the day off. I grabbed the broom and took it to the end of the hall, where I could eavesdrop without being obvious. In my own study of the cards, I had gotten about halfway through the deck, but not by going one by one. I was cheating. It was simply taking far too long. Observing might also be a good shortcut. Renee had the cards on the table, pausing just a few seconds to get her brain in the right mode. She touched her fingers together and to the tip of her nose quickly. It looked

154 like a quick prayer. The girl said she wanted to know if the guy she was dating was the one. Afterwards, as Renee was putting the cards back in order—she’d used the standard deck like the one she’d given me—I asked her if she had been praying. I was joking, sort of. It was always curious to me that Pearl had those paintings of Jesus and angels in her office, right over different versions of the Bible. “Yes, praying” she said. “Well, it’s a good thing to get things going in the right direction.” “That was vague.” She slid the deck back in its box. “Well. There are different explanations, but I think it’s good to pray to whatever your vision of God is. Pray for guidance in interpreting the cards as they come up.” She smoothed the wrinkles out of the tablecloth. “My vision of what God is?” That was odd wording. I remembered asking God’s forgiveness for playing with fire when I first started with the cards. I’d been so afraid of it all then. And I was over that. “Asking for guidance? You said this was all psychological.” “Well. It is.” “Stop saying ‘well,’ Renee, and give it to me straight. What are we doing here?” “Superstitions die hard, Mer.” “I don’t get it.” She sat in one of her side chairs and gestured me to the other one. She sat with both legs under her. “So it’s like when two people get married and they think they’re in love with each other, but they’re really just in love with the dream, the fairy tale of romantic love and happily ever after and babies and all that. Do you know what I mean?” Boy, did I. And what was wrong with that? Okay, point taken. Another issue I could go back and forth on, confusing my own brain. “So either you believe in demons and spirits or you don’t, right?” I nodded. “Wrong. What your head believes and what your heart believes can be two different things. Both at the same time.” “Or your conscious versus your subconscious.” “Exactly.”

155 I was feeling the wind being let out of my sails. I’d thought I had this all figured out, and that it was safe. “So what you’re saying is, you don’t believe this has anything to do with spirits, but you’ll pray just in case, to keep the bad ones out.” “Exactly.” “Then what is your view of a Ouija Board?” “I don’t know. Those things get bad results somehow. Not just in the movies, either.” “And yet you say this is all ‘psychological’ and ‘archetypal’?” I was using air quotes. “Think about it. A Ouija Board is more like a séance. You call spirits and try to talk to them and ask them questions. You never know who you’re going to get, and you never know what they’re up to. What their intentions are. When I read cards, I look at them and try to see patterns and I’m just looking into my own subconscious. I’m not asking somebody or something else. The cards are like ink blots, the way I do it. Now, I have no idea what people like your mother-in-law do.” “But you ask the cards questions.” “But they don’t actually, in a voice, answer me. It’s random chance which ones I pick. They work because the scenes on the cards all have to do with archetypal life phases and steps that human beings go through, and have gone through, throughout the ages. Did you know that some psychotherapists use tarot cards to help their patients think about their lives and the patterns in them?” That shocked me. “And, did you know that some people use the Bible itself for divination? They think of a question or just ask God to help them out with advice, then they pick a page at random and put their finger down at random and see what the verse says.” That shocked me, too. “And,” she continued, “did you know that people who do that with the Bible say that the King James version works better for that than any other?” “So you think that God helps you pick which card?” She shifted to sit cross-legged on the chair. “Actually, no I don’t. I think that’s a superstitious view.”

156 “But you pray before doing it, anyway?” “Yes. Feels right.” She ran her fingers through her hair like she was shaking off a headache. “You pray to your vision of what God is?” “Yes.” She looked at me with her fingertips together like a tent, sitting cross- legged now like a guru on a mountain top. “What is your vision of God?” “I pray to the Goddess,” she said, with a secretive smile. I was going straight to Hell.

So be it. I was tired of worrying about that threat, having it held over my head all the time. When it didn’t scare me, it just seemed manipulative. I searched through the whole deck that night to find a card that echoed how I felt. The Empress. That was I card I should have drawn for myself earlier, rather than the Emperor. And what struck me about it then was that she was pregnant. She was a mother. I stared until I just couldn’t focus my eyes anymore. When I turned out the light and lay in the bed in the dark, I could feel sleep was far, far away. Traffic zoomed by on the highway, headlights crossing the room. I should get some blackout drapes. But I was used to all those shadows now. My vision of what God is. I didn’t have a clear vision of that. So, just to see what would happen, I tried to picture, and to feel, God as a Goddess instead. As a woman, a queen rather than a king. A mother. Dear Mother. It was hard to say. I got stuck then. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. It felt so different. Tears came to my eyes and flowed freely. Dear Mother. Please love me. . .

157 Chapter 15

Tammy tossed a booklet on the table in front of me. It was the schedule for the tech school’s next session. Sinclair Tech had a campus in Ballard, just down the street and over two from the salon. “What’s this for?” She set her mug on the countertop with a bang. It sounded a little hollow, like maybe it had a flaw. “Trent,” she said, “may be leaving us. Which would leave me one short, with a big empty room and a big empty chair in there.” She poured her coffee and on the way out, pointed to the booklet. “Something for you to think about.” Maybe. I’d have to get past my knee-jerk reaction to her bossiness. I put the booklet with my purse and went to find Trent, straightening up his area, wiping and polishing and organizing. It looked more like a display than a work area, none of his usual friendly chaos. “Trent, what’s going on?” “What do you mean?” “Tammy’s pushing me to go to tech school now.” “Oh,” he said, putting a comb back in the green sterilizing solution. “Yeah. You should really think about it.” “She said you might be leaving. She didn’t fire you, did she?” He laughed and started sorting through the drawers in his plastic roller chest. He sorted curlers by size. “She couldn’t fire me if she wanted to.” “Then what is it?” He sighed, looked out the window. “My ex moved to Sinclair, you know.” “Yeah, so?” “So, I don’t ever get to see my kids anymore. Not like I used to.” I looked at the pictures of his two daughters and one son, professionally framed and matted and hung on the wall. “So I’ve been talking to somebody at a place in Sinclair, and they do have an opening, and I’m really thinking about it.” I didn’t know what to say. I was still looking at the pictures, imagining what it must be like for him, the way the wench just took them away. I thought of Andy and Sean.

158 “You should see this place, Meredith. Contemporary architecture, a coffee bar inside where customers can make themselves an espresso or latte or mocha, with all the flavors to choose from. Also, green tea smoothies, and protein powders to add, just like a little café. There are already eight stylists there, and full spa team with a masseuse.” “Sounds great,” I said, trying to decide if he’d be happy in such a huge place. Cold architecture. “You’d really leave us?” “I’m thinking about it. I’d miss you, but I’m thinking about it. You’ll have to come and see me.” The bells on the door jangled then, and our first customer of the day, a drop-in, arrived. At the end of the day, during clean-up, and me with my broom getting the chunks of hair from under Trent’s countertop, Tammy came in, walked up to Trent and said she had to know his decision as soon as possible. “Can’t I have a little time to think?” “Sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind.” “Tammy. . .” “Go on, go running after them. You know you’re going to.” I would’ve left, gone anywhere else, but they were in the doorway, and I was blocked. I turned my back and swept softly. “It’s my kids, Tammy. What do you want me to do?” “What are you going to do if she moves again? She could go to Atlanta, anywhere. New York. You going to follow her all over the world?” “I’m over her, Tammy. This is about my kids.” “Bullshit.” “You know, I’m not at all sure I’ll miss you.” “Fine. Go on to your gold star salon and fix all the old ladies’ hair there, too. Make you some new fans. All the grandmothers in Sinclair need somebody to introduce their geeky granddaughters to.” “That is really getting old, Tammy.” He turned his back to her and wiped dust off the chair rail with his fingers. “You apparently want me to leave. You know what? I can take all my business with me. It’s not too far of a drive. They won’t know luxury and fine

159 living until the see where I’m going.” He walked back toward her and almost whispered, “You know you are just jealous.” Tammy muttered “go to hell” and left. I snuck out and went to my purse, where my deck sat in its cardboard box, which now was beginning to tear and look rather worn. I should order a cute bag or wooden box for them. A bag would fit better in my purse, so I could have them whenever I wanted them. I’d seen a cute little drawstring bag on the internet, dark blue with stars and silver glitter, with a velvet sheen. I took them to the back room so I wouldn’t be seen. I shuffled them and asked, what was Tammy jealous of—Trent getting a big job at a fancy place, Trent leaving Ballard, or was it something else between them? That was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me before that little showdown. I shuffled two more times and cut the deck and picked one. The Four of Coins (I still couldn’t call them Pentacles). A king in a blue robe sitting on his throne a distance from a small city. One coin on top, one in his arms, one under each foot. What? I shuffled through to find one I thought reflected the situation. The Five of Wands. Five people with large sticks who looked like they were arguing, fighting. Me, Tammy, Trent, Renee. That was four. Who was the fifth? Trent’s ex? My husband? Tammy’s soon-to-be-ex? Was the fifth person a stand-in for all three? On a longer look, I wasn’t so sure they were fighting. Maybe they were trying to build something with those sticks. Only one of them seemed to be in a really bad mood. Build a business. Build our lives. And then I thought, maybe I shouldn’t always try to find a card I thought fit. Maybe that would only tell me what I already knew. Maybe I should try harder to see something in the card I drew randomly. I stared and stared at the Four of Coins. Coins meant prosperity or career. Seemed like it foretold a good career move for Trent. But it didn’t answer my question. I needed a Cups card to know if there was something between them. Maybe I hadn’t asked the question right.

160 “Hey, you going to lock up?” Renee stuck her head in the door. I said I would. “How’s it coming?” She nodded her head toward the cards. “It doesn’t always answer my question.” “Ah-ha. Now you’re getting it.”

The last time I’d been in this room, between these gray goopy walls, with these bars, I’d been carrying on with Jeff. I’d sat right here and talked with Andy, let him hug me, when I’d been dallying behind his back with the man who’d arrested him. And I’d been a little bit proud of it. Now I was sorry. Don’t get me wrong, I had no intention of telling Andy what I’d done while he sat and rotted in jail. But the whole situation with Trent and his kids made me feel sorry for Andy, and for Sean. I drove him to see his Daddy the next Sunday afternoon. I’d asked Pearl to come so Andy and I would have some time, just the two of us, to talk, without Sean. She made no sign she knew about anything that had been going on, with me or with her son, or anything else. I wondered if she’d given up her talents when she’d retired, or if they withered from disuse. Or maybe she just didn’t want to know. Andy and Sean played around the table in the corner, the same corner they’d been in before, until Sean told Andy, “Now you be the bad guy,” and I stepped in. “Sean, go with grandma and y’all walk around outside. Tell your Daddy bye.” And it hurt to see how Sean clung to him, and vice versa, and how many times Sean laid his head on Andy’s shoulder and asked him to come home. How many times Sean said he didn’t want to leave. I didn’t know how many more times I could watch this. Pearl took his little hand and said they’d try to see beetles again. Sean moped on the way out. “God,” Andy said, “that’s tough.” “Well, he still doesn’t understand.” Neither did I. “Thank you for bringing him, even though I’d said I didn’t want him to see me like this. Thanks for bringing him anyway. It’s probably better than him thinking I just left him.”

161 Andy seemed more, well, used to the place, his role as a convict. He sat straighter, thoughtful, with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hand. “How are things in Ballard?” “One of our stylists is probably leaving, and I’m thinking about taking some classes at the tech school. Get licensed myself.” “Is that what you want?” An irritating question. “It would be better money.” “That’s not always the issue.” Oh, so now he was the expert in all this? “Do you want to be a hair stylist?” “I don’t know, Andy. It’s something to do, the opportunity is already there.” He nodded slowly, like he was waiting for me to see the light. I said, “I might take some other classes while I’m there, see what all I’m interested in. They’ve got classes in Horticulture.” He perked up. “Really? We’ve got some of those here, too.” That stole my thunder a bit. “The tech school here offers some classes here.” He held up his hands to indicate the bars. “I’ve been thinking about taking some, too. My counselor,” he still said the term with sarcasm, “suggests we search our souls to seek our paths, our sacred contracts, our purpose in life. Basically, career counseling in other words.” “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” “No, I guess not. I think it’d be good for you, too.” My shoulders slumped at his bossiness. The nerve, him, sitting where he was, pronouncing what would be good for me. I remembered when he had encouraged me to move on, like he’d given me permission to leave him. Then he’d launched into memories of the good times. He didn’t know what he wanted. “So what else is new in town?” Okay, he had asked. “They say Linda is back in town.” I watched his eyes when I said that, looking for any twitch or shading or evasion. He blinked. That was all, just blinked once. At least I knew he wasn’t getting any from her. Not in here. “I said, Linda seems to be back in town. She came up to the salon and I washed her bleached-out head of hair myself.”

162 “Is that so?” His nonchalance was perhaps too careful. I couldn’t tell for sure, though. She could be visiting him. We sat looking at each other for a while, then he shrugged. “I never thought she’d come back to Ballard. At least not to stay.” He frowned. “Anyway, things don’t always turn out like we expect them to, do they?” He reached out and put his hand over mine. “No,” I said, “you never know where you’re going to end up.”

Is Andy seeing Linda behind my back? The Ace of Coins. A big round coin held in a huge ghost-like hand coming out of a cloud in the sky. That told me nothing. I got out my brand new book that had just arrived from the internet. I’d had it delivered at work so Pearl wouldn’t ask about it. There had been hundreds of books, it seemed, to choose from. I’d ordered the one with the most stars for customer satisfaction, the one that customer reviews said was the best basic one for beginners. I’d also ordered the blue velveteen bag. The Ace of Coins—new beginning in career, business, prosperity. Again, nothing about the question I had asked. If Andy was fooling around, and I divorced him, he had nothing I could get in the divorce settlement. If he wasn’t fooling around, and we stayed together, still nothing, for the next four years while he was stuck in prison. Although, we could sell the shop. But then, what would he do when he got out? The shop was our ace in the hole.

Pearl had taken Sean uptown for some new shoes—he was outgrowing all his old ones, and fast. I was just about to leave for work when the doorbell rang. I looked out the peephole, but no one was there. I opened the door, no one. And then I heard my name called, “Mrs. Sutton,” and I looked over at the office door. There stood Mr. Tyler’s daughter. She walked toward me, seeming more excited and happy than she’d looked the last time. “Mrs. Sutton, could I get just a quick reading?” I agreed, just this once, to do another reading at Pearl’s. We sat on either side of Pearl’s desk, in the warmth and humidity of late summer morning in a closed-in garage. The desk felt old, tired, a bit drab, heavy and clunky compared to our setup at the salon,

163 with the incense and the whimsical, sparkly tablecloths. I asked her what she wanted to know. “I want to know how the wedding is going to turn out. That, and the honeymoon. Chuck didn’t want to wait until February, you know with the world the way it is now. So we’ve moved the date up, and had to change all the arrangements.” She frowned. I still didn’t like the sound of this guy. “But things seem to be going smooth enough, much more than I would have expected. I want to know if there’s anything I’m forgetting.” “Okay, I have to tell you first that I’m not psychic.” This had become our standard disclaimer at the salon. “I said that before, I know, but it bears repeating. I just read the cards. I’m not a psychic like my mother-in-law.” If she ever had been actually psychic. “Oh.” That gave her pause. “Well, you did fine last time.” That gave me pause. She seemed to have ignored what the cards had said last time, or just interpreted them the way she wanted to. Heard what she wanted to hear. Maybe that was why Pearl was so bossy—to get them to listen. I shuffled the cards, fanned them in my hands, and had her pick one. I still needed to learn the different layouts, but I had the book now to teach me all that. The Eight of Cups. I immediately thought of what that card had meant for me. Leaving family behind, actually betraying them. The old moon with the new in her arms, bad luck. Jeff, bad choice. Straying. Feeling restless and unsettled. As I played through my mind what words to say to her, they were coming more clear to me. “Cups are heart attachments, emotions. You’re leaving them behind.” “Yes, leaving family to start a new one. Of course, I’m getting married.” “Well. A new moon is a good time to start out on something new. This shows an old moon, fourth quarter, and the full moon, which aren’t auspicious for starting something new.” “I think that is the new moon, because it’s facing right.” I started to argue, but actually, I wasn’t sure. I’d have to get on the internet and look it up sometime, the new moon versus the old. Maybe she was right. “So things are going smoothly, with you changing all the arrangements for the wedding. Why does this bother you?”

164 She shrugged and laughed. “Just superstitious, I guess.” She had a light in her eyes. She seemed calm enough. And happy. Maybe Mr. Tyler had been wrong. Maybe her fiancé was good to her. Then again, thinking about the card, maybe she was just rebelling against her father. Poor reason to get married. I said, “You might want to find a real psychic.” “What about your mother-in-law?” “No. Not anymore. Maybe go to Sinclair.” She looked stressed then, like there wasn’t time for that. “Or just trust yourself. Make sure you’re making the right decision for the right reasons.” “Oh, I am,” she said, getting out her checkbook. The words came too fast. She hadn’t stopped to think about them. I told her not to worry about payment, that I didn’t feel I’d really helped her. “And if you want another reading in the future, we don’t do it here anymore.” I told her about the salon and the various services we offered there now. “Really? At a salon? That’s interesting.” A hint of a smirk on her face.

“I just don’t like doing it for money,” Renee said, putting a new six-pack of colas in the refrigerator. She was trying to cut back. “It makes me very uncomfortable.” “Hell, the money’s the only reason we are doing it,” Tammy said. Trent had taken the day off to go talk to the people in Sinclair again. It was obvious what that meant. “I just think we could have, like, maybe an interest group.” She sat down at the table and popped the top on a can. “A do-what?” Tammy was on her second coffee of the morning. It was going to be one of those days, when the two of them would practically mainline caffeine and the leftover energy would flow through the air ducts straight into the lungs of anybody who was around. “I don’t know what you’d call it, but I know places in bigger cities where it’s like a little club meeting, and you all get together and read tarot and talk about it. More like a support group or something.” “Well, that’s bordering close to therapy, and we’re not qualified to do that.” “A support group?”

165 “They’re usually run by people with degrees in psychology. Right?” Renee looked at me. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. I said, “We’re not psychics, either.” I sort of saw Renee’s point. Even though we made it clear we weren’t, that was what most of the customers expected. They wanted answers, and they wanted them to come from our heads or visions or spirit guides or whatever they’d seen in the movies. It was, in a word, uncomfortable. Renee’s idea was interesting. I’d have to think about it. Renee said, “We don’t do anything for them that they can’t do for themselves, so I don’t like charging money for it.” “Wait just a minute,” Tammy said. “There is nothing we do in this whole place that they can’t do for themselves. They can color their own hair and they can paint their own toenails. So what exactly is your point?” Renee poured the rest of her cola down the drain, tossed the can in the recycling bucket, and pushed open the swinging door. “I don’t know.” Our first drop-in client that day was an older man. Older men usually didn’t come into a salon, for one thing, plus he didn’t want a haircut. He wanted a reading. Renee was giving a pedicure, so I took him to the back room. As he took his seat, he glanced around uncomfortably at the décor, the purple tablecloth with gold moons. He seemed to hesitate. “Is everything all right?” “I guess so.” He pulled his chair up to the table. “Just not what I expected.” That was the usual reaction from older clients, although the women would seem to relax into it over time. “What brings you here today?” “Money.” Ah, that category. “Have you lost it or do you need to know where to find it to begin with?” “I’m sorry? No, I’ve got some to invest and I need to decide how and where to invest it.”

166 I hesitated. These kinds of questions always made me nervous because the consequences were so high. If I were psychic, maybe I’d see a bit of a stock’s name or a graph going up or down or something easy to interpret. He said, “I’ve already talked to an investment counselor, and he narrowed it down for me. But I’ve still got some choices. It’s either this,” he pointed to my deck, “or eenie- meenie-miney-moe.” He laughed nervously, once. “Have you ever had a tarot reading before?” I asked. “Yes. Once.” His arms rested on the table, palms together. He looked me straight in the eye. That was all he was going to say. So I let him pick a card. The Ace of Cups. That ghostly hand again sticking out from a cloud, holding a cup with five streams of water flowing out. He studied it intently. He asked, “May I pick it up?” He did, holding it by the edges like a photograph. He put it back down, tapped it once with his index finger, quickly, like he didn’t want to leave a fingerprint, and nodded. I recited from memory, “It can mean new love, new spirituality, blessings from above.” “Yes, I inherited that money.” He nodded grimly. He looked down at the card again. Then he laughed, actually giggled. “Okay. I see. All right, then.” “This answered your question?” “Absolutely.” He held out his hand to shake. “Thank you for your time.”

Chapter 16

At the end of the day, a pretty busy day overall, I went out to my car, and on my windshield was a yellow flier. It announced a revival to be hosted by a church in town, with a world-renowned expert and lecturer on the “end times.” The copy said, “Come hear Brother Lucas expound on the terrors and trials of the end days to come, and the days we are in now, leading to the End. Hear about the Beast, the Whore of Babylon, and the Legion of False Prophets infesting our world in this age of increasing information. Learn the Truth and wash your Soul of the impurities from living in this world of sin, the

167 world that is increasingly controlled by the Devil, who tempts you every day with the internet, video games, and any information you want at your fingertips. YOUR EVERLASTING FUTURE IS AT STAKE!” Someone had highlighted in neon green and underlined “Legion of False Prophets” as well as the time and place. They’d written in shaky capital letters, “Please come. We do not judge. We want to help you.” Tammy and Renee came out then and found the same flier on their windshields, with the same highlighting and handwriting. Renee said, “Oh, my god. What is this?” She looked around the neighborhood in all directions. There was nobody there. No odd cars or people walking around. Tammy crumbled it into a ball and threw it into the gutter. “Oh, it’s on, now.” Sometimes, she scared me.

The client’s name was Mrs. Sims and her elderly mother had just had a massive stroke. Renee hadn’t wanted to do the reading alone, so we both were in there, trying to help Ms. Sims locate the missing supplemental insurance policy her mother had once mentioned. She couldn’t even remember the company’s name. “I cannot find it anywhere. Mother’s other papers are all in the roll-top desk, together. But the policy isn’t there. I know she said she took one out.” “Mrs. Sims, I don’t know if the tarot is going to help with that one. That may be a little too specific.” Renee was actually wringing her hands. I wished we could put up a sign that said we’d do boyfriends and careers and things like that. But elderly mothers on their deathbeds and such, this was too much. And it did seem like the wrong question for the cards. If she’d asked whether she was going to find the policy, then she might get a coin card or something with flowing water and images of abundance, but what card could show her where her mother had put the thing? We did the best we could. A one-card drawing turned up The Queen of Swords (a queen on her throne holding up a sword). A three-card spread added The Two of Swords (a blinded justice-like figure holding two swords crossed) and the Ten of Wands (a man struggling to carry all ten big branches) and the Seven of Cups (two children playing with flowers in the cups).

168 “What about your Celtic Cross spread?” I asked Renee. I hadn’t learned that one yet, but it was a fancy layout that went more in-depth with your past phases and your present and future ones. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sims, but this is just not going to answer a specific question like where something is.” Mrs. Sims looked utterly dejected. I wanted to help the lady so bad. And I’d seen some psychic shows lately where such questions had come up, things that had gone missing. I said, “Usually in these matters, if it’s a document you’re looking for, it might be in the very same drawer you’ve already looked in, but stuck up under the drawer above it, or maybe it’s slipped down behind the drawer.” She didn’t look convinced. “Your mother probably put it somewhere special where she wouldn’t forget it.” Renee said, “Does she have a safe deposit box?” Mrs. Sims said, “If she does, I don’t know where the key for that is, either. This was just unexpected, you know. Although it shouldn’t have been. We should have thought of this so we’d be ready.” Renee said, “Did your mother like to keep lists?” “Oh, yes, all the time.” “Did she keep the lists all together in an organized way?” Mrs. Sims brightened. “Well, no. She’s got those things scattered all over.” “Maybe, then, she made a list of where important papers were, and maybe you just haven’t found that list yet.” Mrs. Sims was nodding as Renee was saying this. “Well, we’ll see, won’t we? It’s worth a try. Nothing to lose by trying. But you girls sure have been sweet. I appreciate your help.” We stood with her and she shook our hands We didn’t take her money. And I hoped to heck she would be able to find either the list or the policy, or something helpful. But at least we’d made her feel better. When we heard her car leave, Renee said, “I am telling you, I don’t like doing it this way. It makes me feel dirty.” I sighed. “Renee, tell me more about your idea of doing this like a support group.” The pressure certain clients put on us, the pressure of their situations, was getting to me too.

169 The cards were still on the table, and neither one of us made a move to put them away. She said, “Support group isn’t exactly what I was trying to say before. More like a club. And it wouldn’t just be you or me reading, either, but we would gather people who want to do this for fun or learn how to do it, and that’s it—just for fun, not for money. It’ll still drum up business.” She crossed her legs under her on the folding chair, which had to be uncomfortable. She used one hand to hold them crossed. “I’ll tell you, Meredith, the kind of people that would attract, you can call them New Age or Hippy or whatever you want, but they’ll know the score and they won’t expect us to be psychic.” She was losing the battle to keep her legs crossed. She let one drop. “Or at least no more psychic than they are themselves.” She smiled. She meant people like the ones who would shop at that store we’d gone to, the one with the incense. I had to admit, I liked the sound of it. “So,” I said, “how do we approach Tammy with this?” She reached out and began to gather the cards into a stack. “Let me see about that, okay? I’ll have to feel out her mood.” We walked toward the front room. A couple walked in—a middle-aged man and woman, the woman with hair in such a huge, swoopy bun that it must never have been cut, and a blue jean skirt with Princess Reeboks. Not a speck of makeup. The man was in a plain suit. He spoke to Tammy, “Mother and me just wanted to see about your fortune tellers.” There was a hard tone in his voice. They didn’t smile, yet they didn’t seem worried about anything, either. I immediately remembered that flier. Tammy had a careful look on her face. “My what?” “Your fortune tellers. Tale is, you’ve got that going on here.” Renee and I backed up a little, back into the hall where the couple couldn’t see us. “I’m sorry,” Tammy said in a high, soft, sweet and therefore unlike her everyday voice. “I don’t have any psychics or fortune tellers here.” “You don’t?” “No, sir.” There was a pause. I could hear the couple shifting on the hard wood floor. “Alrighty, then. We’ll just be going. You have yourselves a blessed day.” “You, too.”

170 The door closed, the bells jingling behind them. I looked at Renee. This could be our chance to bring up the new idea to Tammy. We walked into Tammy’s room, where she sat fanning herself on her zebra-cushioned chair. “Did y’all hear that?” she said. Renee said, “Tammy, we . . .” “I told you, it is now on.” She stabbed her forefinger onto the wicker chair arm. Renee sighed. It wasn’t the right time.

Tammy’s friend from high school was back. Not Linda, but Lisa, the brunette. Renee and I sat with them as Tammy trimmed her ends. Tammy told her about our new service in the back room. “It’s just word of mouth, though. We’re not going to advertise it.” “I expect not, with the way things are these days. Sounds interesting, though. My cousin can read tarot cards.” Renee said, “Does he charge for it?” “Oh, no. He’s a pharmacy major. So, has it increased business?” “Yeah, it has. But let me tell you.” Tammy told her about the flier and then about the couple that had come calling. Lisa listened, her eyebrows raised. “Good lord, it’s like the church version of Men In Black. Better watch out, people might start disappearing.” She wiggled her fingers at us. Renee and I looked at each other uneasily. Tammy said, “Now, what are they going to do? Put some more fliers on our cars? Threaten us with hellfire and damnation? Write a letter to the paper? Oooh, I’m scared.” “Well,” Lisa said, “you could lose some of your more, uhm, fundamentalist customers.” “Yeah. Okay.” Tammy shrugged, trimming Lisa’s hair furiously. I hoped she wasn’t cutting too much. “True. But it might attract others.” All this concerned me, though. I said, “Would they actually do anything to us?” Tammy looked at me. “Like what?” I didn’t know.

171 “If they do,” she pointed at me with the scissors, “I will get the police out here in an instant.” She put the scissors down and began pulling lengths of hair outwards to check their symmetry. She sprayed mousse and rubbed it in and then checked the temperature of a fat curling iron. “Hey,” Lisa said. “Do y’all watch Dr. Abe?” We did sometimes, right there in the salon’s kitchen. Dr. Abe was an area psychologist who had recently started a segment on the local lunch show. “Did y’all see it Monday, with that girl on there that was addicted to heroin? No? Shooting up, living on the street, prostituting herself for money, cutting her arms out of anxiety or something. She had a bad childhood.” Tammy said, “And what does that mean, bad childhood?” I swear sometimes she could be hard-hearted. “Said she was abused and neglected. Ran away when she was fourteen.” “And when did she start the heroin, after that or before that?” Renee said, “Tammy. Come on.” “Well, they all say that, don’t they? It doesn’t explain it. It doesn’t explain why some people become drug addicts or turn to a life of crime.” She looked at me when she said that. “While others become serial killers or average joe’s who do hold down a full- time job and do look after their own kids.” I said, “It doesn’t explain why people with good childhoods do those things, either.” Tammy was brushing out Lisa’s hair. “I’m sick and tired of everybody blaming their own failures on somebody else. ‘Oh, poor me, my mommy didn’t hug me enough.’ Nobody takes responsibility for their own crap anymore.” Lisa said, “Dr. Abe asked her if she was willing to move into this so-called residential facility—“ “Halfway house.” “Right, to work through her issues and get her life back on track. He said she had to figure out why she’d gotten to that place in her life.” “What did he mean, why?” “Tammy,” I said, “you’re the one who’s almost got a psychology degree.”

172 “Yeah.” She handed Lisa a mirror so she could see the back. “You know what,” Tammy said. “After listening to y’all read tarot cards, I think psychology is about the same thing. Another kind of divination game.” Renee said, “I can see that.” “The ‘doctor’ sits up there like a guru, pronouncing some pre-packaged little message. Then you’re supposed to see the light. And be fixed.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. ‘My Daddy left me and that’s why I suck.’ Poof, fixed. Mystery solved.” “Wait,” Lisa said, “I’m sure there’s more to it than that. Psychologists have to have certifications and degrees, for one thing. And it’s not random, they base their advice on symptoms, like a regular doctor. They are doctors.” “I’ve been to one,” Renee said. “She was every bit as crazy as I was.” Tammy took the drape off Lisa and shook the hair ends onto the floor. “And that woman charged me two hundred and fifty dollars an hour.” Lisa looked frustrated. She hadn’t gotten to finish her story.

According to the book I’d bought from the internet, and which Renee had said I wouldn’t need but thank you very much I most certainly did, the tarot was indeed based on psychology. Or maybe the other way around, since tarot came first. Although my deck, considered the standard, was developed during the very same time period as the field of psychology was developing. In any case, the tarot utilizes not only archetypes but something called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow was a psychologist who described the way human beings progress through various stages of their lives. There were biological and physical needs, safety and security needs, the need to belong and feel loved, the need for self-esteem and feelings of achievement. Then the top of the hierarchy was self-actualization. The tarot, according to my book, reflects the stages of that journey to self-actualization. I looked through the major arcana, the main cards in importance. The last one was The World. The book said it meant Self-Actualization. This was absolutely riveting. And I wanted to explain it to Mom, and to that couple. This wasn’t demons and spirits. This was straight-out psychology, just like Renee had told me weeks ago. I hadn’t fully understood then.

173 This was science. And I wanted to tell all this to Andy. He’d get it. He’d be interested to hear me tell it. But he wasn’t here.

174 THE WORLD

Chapter 17

We threw Trent a goodbye party. Tammy pulled him aside for a good fifteen minutes or so. I hoped she apologized. I’d gotten Pearl to bake her best Red Velvet cake, a rich brick red, moist but light, with whipped white frosting that was light and smooth. I’d always assumed it was her old family recipe, the way she used to guard it, but it turned out she’d clipped it from Southern Living magazine in the eighties. Renee brought colas, of course, and Tammy made a seven-layer dip. “Will you miss us?” I asked. “You bet.” He hugged me briefly. “Come see me in Sinclair. Get you a frappucino and a massage too.” The three of us, me and Tammy and Renee, said you bet we’d go. But I didn’t know if we’d ever get around to it. With Trent gone, his darkened room on the side of the place was spooky, lonely. We were sad and sedate to know he wouldn’t be back tomorrow. Tammy asked me if I’d given thought to taking classes. I had. I’d already sent the application in. It was then that Linda came in. My first instinct was to find something to do in the back room, but that would be cowardly. She was my husband’s first love. And first loves don’t really die. He was mine. I told her to follow me back to the shampoo room, and she smiled at me, nervously it seemed. Uneasy. Good. When she bumped into me and said she was sorry, she seemed extra apologetic. I took charge. I showed her which sink we would use, shampooed her quickly— no massage for the mistress—and used our best-smelling conditioner on her. I would take the high road.

175 She was quiet even with Tammy, who for once wasn’t all that talkative herself. There was just the minimum of how are things, fine, etc. Tammy trimmed the split ends and they fell onto the floor. As Linda was picking up her purse, she said, “I just wanted to get my hair done one more time before I leave.” “You’re leaving?” Tammy asked. “Where are you going?” “To Atlanta,” she said, a quiet sense of pleasure in her eyes. “I’m going to get married.” My heart fell to the floor. Had I been wrong about everything? About Andy? Did he know the first love of his life was getting married to someone else? What an odd feeling of pleasure and sorrow.

So, had I been wrong about Andy and Linda? I shuffled. The Magician. The second of the major arcana. Something new being created, creative power. The ability to create our own reality.

I had to see him, though. I had to know some answers. There were some things you just couldn’t create for yourself, some realities you just couldn’t ignore. I’d ask Pearl to keep Sean home on Sunday and go up there by myself. But Mom called. “Just wanted to check in, make sure everything was fine.” “Things are fine, Mom. I’m going to take some classes at the tech school next session.” “That sounds like fun. Listen. I should apologize for what all I said last time I saw you. I should be a better mother to you. I should be there for you more.” A little late. “I could help out more, with my grandson. You know, take my turn. He’s such a precious boy, Meredith. Looks just like his father. Andy was always good-looking.” She was reaching out, and that touched me. I hoped she was sincere. “Sean would like to get to know his grandma Cindy better. You did break up with whoever, didn’t you?” “Yes, I did.”

176 “Well, I think that would be good. Just for a visit. We can’t stay long. This Saturday?” “Oh, I know. Why don’t you bring him Sunday? We could go to church together.” I thought of the sweaty preacher. “I don’t know about that.” “Oh, come on. It’ll be good for him.” “He goes most every Sunday with Pearl.” Not anymore, but she didn’t have to know that. “Really? What church does she go to?” “Mom, I don’t want to go into that. Why don’t I bring him over for breakfast Sunday, and then you can keep him all afternoon while I go see Andy. There’s some things I want to talk to him about.” “I imagine so. Well, that sounds like fun. How long will you be gone?” “Probably until late afternoon. Can you handle him for that long? He’s four.” “Meredith, I have handled children, as you put it, for many years. I used to sit him when he was a baby. Remember? Don’t you think I can do it? My own daughter thinks I can’t deal with children.” I made a mental note to pack toys and DVDs, and some snacks too. And actually, if he hadn’t been four, if he’d still been three, as he liked to say all the time, I probably wouldn’t have left her with him, for either of their sakes. But this was about family. He needed as much family as he could get.

“I’m glad you came, Meredith,” Andy said after a long hug. I wondered if he would kiss me with all the people around, even if I initiated it. “Sean didn’t want to come?” “I left him with my mother. I wanted to talk to you alone.” He nodded, cautious. We had to sit at a table in the middle of the room today, our corner spot taken already by a young couple, the woman with multiple body and ear piercings, tattoos. Her husband, if that was what he was, had tattoos all up and down his arms like paisley. In the car I’d come up with a mental script of how I wanted this to go. “Andy, the first time I came to see you here, you told me that if I wanted to move on, that you’d understand.” “Was that the first time here?”

177 “Don’t get me off track. I need to know what you meant.” “I’m glad you didn’t move on. I’m glad you’re here.” “But why did you say that to me?” He sighed. “Is this what you wanted for your life?” He gestured at the room with his arms outspread. He was going to avoid the Linda question. And maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe it shouldn’t anyway. “I just wanted to know why, Andy. Why.” “Why I said you should be happy?” “Why any of this, Andy.” “What do you hope to get from all this, Meredith? There’s no why. In the whole world it’s just stupid people doing stupid things for stupid reasons, or no real reason at all. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in here, it’s that. What do you want from me?” In the parking lot, tears clouding my eyes, I drew a card—The Queen of Wands. With lions and a sunflower at her side and a black cat at her feet. Supposed to mean an outgoing personality, interested in personal growth and development. Cat-like powers of observation and intuition. But black cats can be bad luck, too. And she was looking off to the side, distracted by something. I drew another one—Strength, from the major arcana. Lady petting a lion, a real one and not a stone carving, a real King of the Jungle lion who was acting like a kitten under her touch. Yes, please give me strength. Another one—The Four of Coins. I saw no relevance. Another—The Nine of Swords, a woman in bed alone, crying, in sorrow, her face buried in her hands, the swords on the wall beside the bed. I threw the deck against the dashboard. They hit passenger airbag area and fell to the floorboard, scattering in all directions. Like that old game of fifty-two card pickup. A joke. A prank. There were no answers in there. Just reflections. Reflections of what we wanted to be or what we were at that moment, but no answers to any questions. No real help at all.

At breakfast the next morning, Pearl had made eggs and bacon. Maybe she sensed my frustration. Maybe not. Mom sure hadn’t. She’d met me at the door, and not wanting

178 to answer any of her nosiness, I’d said we had to hit the road, that by the time we’d get to Ballard it would be Sean’s bedtime. She said okay and gathered up the toys. She seemed frazzled. But Sean was in a brilliant mood, like he’d had the best time of his life. I’d been glad. Pearl handed me my plate, eggs oozing like she liked them and bacon sizzling. It was comforting. Like when I’d get up and make Mom and myself pancakes on a Saturday morning. Family time. “Hey, Mister,” Pearl said, “did you have a good time at your other grandmother’s?” He nodded, stuffing his mouth with too much. “What did you do?” “Played.” I said, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, baby.” “What did you play?” He held up an action figure. I said, “Don’t put so much in your mouth at one time.” He looked at me. “Did she take you to church?” He nodded. “Did you like it?” He swallowed and shoveled more eggs in. “I said, did you like her church?” He nodded, struggling again with a mouthful that was smaller than the last but still too much. “Okay,” Pearl said, patting his arm, “you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She looked at me. “It’s good she’s making an effort.” When I got home from work, Pearl and Sean were at the table having cookies, too close to dinner time. Pearl said, “Sean, sing your mother that song about the ABC’s.” Sean already knew his ABC’s, most of the time. But I’d listen and brag on him. Sean started singing something behind his hand, quiet and giggling at the same time. Pearl took his hand down. “Sing it so we can hear you.” We waited. He didn’t like to perform on cue. I walked over and put my purse on the countertop by the office. I wouldn’t be needing my cards tonight. “ABCDEFG, Jesus died for you and me.” He applauded himself. I was shocked, my hand still on my purse strap.

179 He repeated it. “ABCDEFG, Jesus died for you and me.” He waited. I said, “Good job singing, Sean.” Pearl and I glanced at each other. “Baby, why don’t you go put on some cartoons or something while Grandma and I make dinner.” He went into the den and turned on the television. “It’s not my place,” Pearl said, straightening the place mat. “But the boy is just four.” “I agree.” “He cannot yet understand that idea.” “I agree.” “I mean, he’s talking about blood being all over the place—his phrase I hope— and dead people up in heaven looking down at their lawnmowers still running. I just don’t think it’s healthy at his age.” “Pearl, I’m with you.” Jeez, what would Dr. Abe say about that? There’s a bumper sticker for you: What Would Dr. Abe Say? “And that’s not all. He said witches and sorcerers go to hell.” “I’ve got to make a phone call.” Pearl waved me on, slamming a cast iron skillet onto the big eye of her stove. “Mother,” I said into my cell phone, from my bedroom with the door shut. “What were you thinking?” “Now what?” I heard her microwave beep three times. I sang that little song to her. “Oh, yeah. They learned that with their Sunday School lesson. He taught it to me, too.” “And what did you think?” “I thought it was cute. What’s your problem?” “Were they studying witches and sorcerers too, in the four-year-old Sunday School?” “It’s a small church, Meredith, they have to combine all the little kids together. We still have only a couple of hundred members. But the preacher says if we start offering a service in Spanish that we’d get a lot more folks to come. But I say . . .”

180 “Answer the question, Mother. Did they learn about sorcerers going to hell in Sunday School or was that your own personal contribution?” “Meredith, he’s at an impressionable age. If you’re going to insist that he be exposed to that kind of thing, then somebody has to provide a balance. A correction, if you want to put it that way.” “Answer the question.” I was seething. “Okay. Yes, I taught him that. He needs to decide which side he’s on. Since you’ve put him right there in the battlefield. And I think, given the circumstances, if you’re going to run up there and see his absentee father every Sunday, then the least I can do for my grandson is take him to church with me. We’ve got a lovely young couple from Tennessee to teach the kids’ classes now.” “No.” “They’re just the cutest little couple, fresh out of seminary, the both of them, although of course, she can’t teach the adults. And if you would just come with us, then—“ “Mother.” “You could begin to get your life on track. Get away from the bad influences. Get some right living back into you. You look like you’ve lost too much weight. Being alone will do that for you.” “Shut up.” “What?” “I have no more to say to you.” I hung up. That was it. The End. I’d given her another chance, and she’d blown it.

She called me on my cell that next day. In mid-morning, when she knew I’d be at work. “Meredith, don’t you hang up on me again. I am your mother, do you hear?” “I hear you.” I kept my voice cool and took the phone outside. I sat at the picnic table and decided not to light a cigarette. Mornings were finally starting to get cooler, a fall scent every now and then in the air. Football season.

181 “Meredith, as your mother and as Sean’s grandmother, I cannot condone what you’re doing, your living situation. I will not continue to enable you. Do you hear what I’m saying?” “I hear you,” I said again. I chewed at a hangnail and watched a yellow butterfly. The season was finally starting to change, in late South Georgia style. “Well, then,” she said. “This is an ultimatum. If you do not move out of that woman’s house and stop your playing around with fire, then that’s it. I just can’t deal with it. Brother Paulk says I have to take a strong stand against the filth of the present age. And, as much as it hurts me as a mother and grandmother, I cannot continue to see you and talk to you if you persist in your path.” She waited for a response from me. The moment was all so unsatisfactory, filled with all the things you can’t or shouldn’t say to the woman who brought you into the world, the things you shouldn’t bring up, the things you’d better not, for the sake of propriety, throw in her face. If this had been a movie of the week, we would’ve had a huge blowout and at least I’d have gotten to vent, two decades’ worth. She’d either have a change of heart and we’d be best friends or, if not, then we’d have a clean break from each other, both having said what we felt we needed to say. But life just isn’t clean like that. “Well?” she said. “What is your answer? What do you have to say for yourself?” “I have nothing to say. This whole issue is in your head.” “You’re digging your own fate, missy.” I sighed, tired of this struggle to the ends of the earth. “Mom, why don’t you just go get yourself a new boyfriend?” She hung up on me.

Chapter 18

Pearl had already started dinner, even though it was my turn. She didn’t speak to me when I came in. “Hey, Pearl,” I said. She said, “Hmmm.” She didn’t even look up. I put my purse in my room and flopped down on the couch close to where Sean’s little red plastic table was set up. He had the color crayons spread out and was drawing

182 shaky circles in multiple colors. Pearl had put an old blue sheet under the table in case of accidents. His cup of tea shook dangerously with each scribble. I stretched my legs out, propping my feet on the coffee table. Then I felt guilty, letting her do all the work in there when it was my turn. “Pearl, do you need any help?” “No,” she said, very cool. Now what? The usual late-afternoon cartoons were on. “Grandma called,” Sean said. “What?” He giggled. “Grandma talked to Grandma.” I sat up. “That’s funny,” he said. I went in the kitchen and stood by the table. Sean didn’t need to hear this. “Pearl, just ignore her.” “Hmm.” “You know how she is, just never mind whatever she said. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Pearl was making shrimp creole out of the plaid cookbook. It smelled heavenly, like a rich gumbo. “She filled my ear full.” “Just forget it. She gave me an ultimatum and I basically told her to stick it. She’ll throw a little hissy fit for a while and then leave us alone.” Pearl turned around and looked at me, red sauce on her chef’s apron. She wiped her hands on the edges. “I’m disappointed, Meredith.” She shook her head and turned back to the stew. My brain raced. She knew good and well what my mother was like. I panicked, but Mom didn’t know about Jeff. And then it hit me. The woman just couldn’t wait to tell Pearl that I had taken over her tarot business. The blabbermouth. You couldn’t depend on her for anything. I should’ve known that. “Pearl, it’s not what you think.” I couldn’t think of what else to say. “That’s okay,” she said, lifting the glass lid from the rice. “I’ll be able to get over it. I just . . . I just thought we could trust each other a little bit more.” “Mommy, Grandma, come look what I did!” I said, “Just a minute, Sean.” “Come look. I drew a spider. Come look.”

183 Pearl said, “You go and look at your child’s drawing.” So I did, and took on over it. It wasn’t half bad, in a child’s abstract sort of way. But I wanted to make this right between me and Pearl. And I had no idea how to. “Supper’s ready,” she called. I heard her getting the plates down from the cabinet and the silverware from the drawer. She was going to do it all herself tonight. “Sean, go wash your hands.” “But Mommy, I’m not finished.” “Now.” Dinner was tense, silent between the two adults, although the child kept up the chatter. He looked from me to his grandmother like he was afraid we were mad at him. Pearl felt betrayed, I was sure. She stared down at her plate when she wasn’t looking at Sean. She didn’t look at me. That hurt more than any of the other recent events, maybe because it was my fault and therefore I couldn’t cover any of it in my own anger. I had to make this right. After dinner, when Sean had gone back to his drawings and cartoons, and we were clearing the dishes, I said, “Pearl, I’m sorry. I apologize. I should’ve told you.” She rinsed the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher. I wiped the crumbs off the table into my hand and tried to think what else I could say or do. She took off her apron, hung it on the hook, and said, “Let’s go sit on the patio.” So we did, the changing season’s evening cool and pleasant, the sun getting close to the horizon big and red. We listened to the night sounds, the traffic barely audible here in the back of the house. After a long while, she said, “Well, do you like it?” “No,” I found myself saying. “I’m not very good at it.” It felt good to admit it. “I tell them what I memorized from the book, mostly, or just get them to describe what they see. I haven’t learned any of the layouts yet. And it’s just not comfortable.” I was babbling, hoping that we’d get some communication reestablished. I wanted the two of us to get comfortable again. She nodded, looking out at the tree line. “Watch yourself.” She scratched her arm. “It can be a trap.” We watched the sun go all the way down.

184 When Mr. Tyler’s daughter walked in through the door, my heart sank. Not again. “Can you help me one more time?” she said. She looked tired around the edges of her eyes and the edges of her mouth. She looked around the back room with a calm amazement. “This is really something. Not what I expected.” I asked her to have a seat. “So when’s the big day?” “Last weekend. Just got back from Panama City yesterday.” “Oh?” She didn’t look tan or rested. I supposed that was to be expected on a honeymoon after a big wedding. “Congratulations.” “Thanks.” She sighed. “It’ll be good to get settled in now, after all the chaos. You know how that goes.” “So what brings you here today?” “We want to know when we’ll be able to start a family.” “Already?” She laughed into her hand. “It’s never too soon if it’s what you’ve been waiting for, for so long.” I’d suspected as much. “Don’t you want to try for a while before you get concerned? Usually the folks who come to us with this question have been trying for at least a year or so. What does your doctor say?” “Oh, we’re not worried about all that. We just want to go ahead and get started.” The card she drew was The Five of Coins. A crippled, haggard couple outside barefoot in the snow underneath a church window that featured the coins in a tree desigh. Money growing on a tree, but not in their reach. Not a good card for someone just married, but I’d been warning her all along. “That’s not right,” she said. “Can I draw another one?” The Hermit, an old man by himself in a snowy climate with a lantern. She laughed into her hand again. “It’s not working too well today. I want to know about a baby.” She said this loudly, to the deck, as if joking. The Four of Cups, a sulky young man sitting underneath a tree, staring hard at three cups sitting on the ground before him, his arms crossed. The fourth cup coming

185 from a hand in a cloud again, and he was so fixated on sulking about the other three that he didn’t even see the fourth. She’s got to get this one, I thought. But she didn’t say. “I guess I’ve taken up enough of your time.” She looked at her watch. “Better get back. He’ll wonder where I’ve gone off to.” I thought about Pearl’s warning. This was indeed a trap. A big circle of questions with no way out. Renee came in after the woman had left. “I hope somebody else comes in.” She flexed her fingers. “I’m just in the mood.” She got out her own deck and shuffled. She drew a card for herself, nodded, and put it back. My fingers itched, too. But I resisted.

Renee got her wish. A woman in ragged sweats and tennis shoes, with large dark circles under her eyes. They stayed back there close to forty minutes, and then Renee called, “Meredith, can you come back here, please?” Tammy, frosting a customer with foils, raised her eyebrow at me. “Sounds serious.” “I hope not.” Their faces were the most serious I’d ever seen around the table, though. And not the I’ve-got-to-know-when-I’ll-meet-him frown, but a deeper, expressionless, exhausted seriousness. “What is it?” I sat by Renee. The woman sighed, like she didn’t want to go through the whole story again. She looked at Renee. “Mrs. Watson’s daughter has gone missing. Right out of her own house.” Mrs. Watson nodded, searching my eyes for help. “Polly is thirty-three. She’s divorced. Has lived by herself in that house for years with no problems at all. She got off work last Wednesday night, about eleven, stopped to get milk. That’s all we know. Her car was in the carport, unlocked which was unusual. The kitchen door was closed but not locked, which was unusual. Her purse was on the counter next to the milk, which was still in the plastic bag. And that’s it. She was gone.”

186 Renee said, “The police don’t have a single clue. No sign of forced entry, no out- of-place fingerprints. Neighbors didn’t see anything or hear anything. Her Rottweiler didn’t even bark.” “We have nothing to go on.” Renee cleared her throat. “It’s been more than forty-eight hours.” Quite a bit more, but I knew what she was implying. The way she caught my eyes, I was sure she didn’t get a good feeling about this. Neither did I. “Meredith, we need to call in a big wig on this. We need an actual psychic.” I hesitated, frowned. She said, “There’s too much at stake on this one.” But I just had the feeling that there wasn’t too much at stake by this point, other than catching the guy. It felt too late. This was just my intuition, and just the common sense of the situation. Prior cases and so forth. “Meredith, call your mother-in-law.” But Pearl would just confirm it, burst the woman’s bubble, this woman who right now still had hope her daughter would be found alive. The woman looked at me with such desperation, such need. So I went to get my phone. I stood in the kitchen, near the dryer that was spinning wet towels, so no one else would hear. “Pearl,” I said with my finger in my ear. “I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this. But we need your help. We’ve got a case we can’t handle.” There was a pause. I heard her breathe in for a long time and then breathe out just as long. “I don’t do that anymore.” “It’s a missing thirty-year-old woman, went missing right from her house and no evidence at all.” “She ran away.” “No, Pearl. Her car and her purse were right there, and some dinner she didn’t even get to touch.” “Oh. God. They should let the police handle it.” “The police don’t have anything to go on.” I pictured Jeff dusting for fingerprints. I hoped he hadn’t been the one to do it. I hoped they’d put their best investigators on the case. “Not one shred of evidence. The lady’s dog didn’t even bark that night.”

187 “Oh,” Pearl said, this time in a higher tone of voice. “Oh. Don’t tell me anything else. I’ll be right there.” She sounded excited. I hoped she’d gotten something. Because there was nothing else to tell. “She’s coming,” I told Mrs. Watson and Renee. “She agreed to help.” Renee said, “She’ll probably need something that belonged to your daughter or maybe a picture of her.” Mrs. Watson reached into the outer pocket of her purse and brought out a picture and a set of keys. I played with Sean outside while Pearl met with Mrs. Watson and Renee. We played on the picnic table, with some fallen branches and limbs from a recent storm. We played chase and then we played catch with a ball he’d brought. They stayed in there a long time. Then I saw Mrs. Watson go to her car and leave, and Pearl came out to us. “Sean,” I said, “go take those limbs and drag them over to the alley so the trash will pick them up. Please.” “You hold this.” He handed me the ball. “Say ‘please,’ son.” He said it like I’d asked him to eat liver. Pearl’s eyes were filled up. “I did it.” She wiped the bottom of her eyes with a fingertip. “After all this time, I did it.” “What did you see?” She looked off into the distance. “I saw some kind of mill yard, some industrial site, with gravel and dust. I saw a slim man, very strong, people underestimate him. The dog knows him. He’s been planning and watching a long time.” She looked at me then and whispered, because Sean was coming back. “The girl is no longer with us. It happened almost immediately. Something about the neck.” She put two fingers on a spot at the back of her neck. “A twist. Fast.” “That limb is too heavy,” Sean said, pointing. I said, “Okay. That’s fine. What about that one?” I pointed to a different spot in the yard. “Okay,” he said, dragging the word out for several syllables. Pearl smiled. I said, “I’m impressed. I’ve never seen you do that.”

188 She straightened the bottom of her shirt. “I’m just relieved.” She looked at her watch. “I’m going to have to leave him with you a little longer. She wants me to go meet with the investigators. If they’ll meet with me.” She walked to her car, tall and proud, shoulders back. I hadn’t seen her like that in a long time. I hoped the lead investigator wasn’t Lieutenant Shiver, that ornery cuss Jeff had wanted me to meet that first day with Andy, who had been lead investigator to arrest my husband, Pearl’s son. Then again, on second thought, maybe it would be better if it was him.

Renee was hopped up at the thought that Mrs. Watson had actually been helped by our little service. “This makes it all worthwhile.” She sat behind the reception counter and surfed the internet looking for classes and courses to get trained and maybe even certified at tarot card reading. “You can do it, too, Meredith.” I looked into Trent’s old room, where Sean was arranging curlers and clips in designs on the floor. Trent’s things, his picture and his personal equipment, and his personality, were completely gone, as if he’d never been there. I thought about taking those classes with Renee. It would be fun to take classes with her. “Maybe.” I was more excited at the thought of the Horticulture classes at the tech school. Renee printed practically a whole ream of websites with information about workshops, some online and some residential in places like California or Hawaii. “This is exciting,” she kept saying. “We really helped someone today.” Tammy said, “We don’t know that yet.” She was walking through with a pile of wet towels. I should’ve gotten them. Renee gave her a look. “It’s more than the police could do for her.” Tammy said, “Well, I’m all for it, if it helps. But again, we don’t know that yet.” She went back toward the kitchen. Renee said, “You know, I was really surprised by Sister Pearl. I’d always thought she faked her way through readings. Or, maybe it’s just that relationships aren’t her thing.” “I thought you wanted to change this to a club format, a for-fun thing.”

189 She sent something else to the printer. “I’m going to have to replace the color cartridge, I guess. But yeah, we can still think about that. I’m still not comfortable charging money. Although, if this gets out and we get some publicity, we might have to keep charging money just to keep the numbers down. I can’t do it all day long, I know that. How about you?” I said no. “Because I still enjoy doing manicures and pedicures and such. I really do.” “I’m never going to tackle a case like we had today. I will never take responsibility for that. I am not psychic.” “Hey, admit it. You had a bad feeling about this. I could see it in your eyes. You knew.” “Renee, that has not been confirmed. Plus, it doesn’t take a psychic to get a bad feeling about this kind of thing.” “Oh, then what is it?” “Intuition. Prior experience. Not the real thing, but through television and the news. I didn’t get a vision of a place or the person or the spot on her body where the violence was done. If there has been any violence.” She gathered her stack of printouts and put them in a folder, which bulged. “You know as well as anybody that there’s been violence.” I knew she was right. “You think these classes are going to make you psychic?” “Who knows? They claim that everybody is at least a little psychic but that most people just aren’t in touch with their natural abilities.” “So it’s natural rather than supernatural. I’ve heard that before.” When Pearl came to pick up Sean, she was glowing with satisfaction. Renee said, “Sister Pearl, you did good today.” “Please don’t call me ‘Sister.’ Just use my name.” “Well, Miss Pearl, what do you think about this? Helping us out once in a while when we get a tough case?” Pearl looked in on Sean. I was proud of him. He really played well by himself and behaved for his age. He was really growing up. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. “I’m not sure. Maybe so.”

190 “Or, you could come in every once in a while, just for fun. Keep yourself limbered up. Give us some pointers.” Pearl looked at me. I shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt. Sean will be in school next year.” Tammy came in from the depths of the back. “He’s four, you might want to go ahead and put him in pre-K, like maybe after Christmas.” Before everything had happened, I’d gone back and forth about whether to enroll him in pre-K. Andy had said it was better to keep him home as long as possible. Then things had happened, time had passed, and it was now too late, of course, for this year. Unless I could get him in for January. I made a mental note to call and check on that. Some mother, I’d been so caught up in my own problems I’d forgotten to actually begin my son’s education. Tammy said, “Mrs. Sutton, I just have to tell you that my cousin married the SOB you told her to. She’s already spent the night with my aunt two or three times.” Pearl said. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” “But you told her to marry him.” Pearl looked at me and stammered she was sorry. I touched her arm and said, “Relationships aren’t her best area.” Pearl stared at me. “I guess not.” “Well,” Tammy said, “if you’d have told her anything else, I guess she wouldn’t have listened anyway.” Renee said, “That’s the way it works, Tammy.” Tammy shrugged. Renee said, “Let me ask you, Miss Pearl, did you ever have trouble with people attacking you or anything?” “What do you mean?” Renee told her about the fliers and about the religious couple. She already knew about my mother. “Yes, that. There will always be people like that. They’re just scared of what they don’t understand. You know,” and she looked at me, “simple religion for simple people.” “But has it ever gotten any worse for you than that?”

191 “Not really. Some people will shun you. Criticize you. You just have to toughen up and ignore it.” “Yeah,” Renee said, “they’ll jump all over you for not being a ‘sheeple.’” Pearl nodded slowly. “Yes. ‘Sheeple,’ I like that. But if they ever actually do anything to you or to your place here, you call the police out here immediately. They don’t take threats or vandalism or anything like that lightly, not these days.” Sean came out of Trent’s room then and put his arms around my legs. “Mommy, is it time to go yet?” Pearl said, “Come on, sweetie. Guess what I’m in the mood for?” “Ice cream!” “You got it.” “Miss Pearl, can I ask you one more question, though? Was today the first time you ever worked with the police?” Renee seemed to think that was kind of glamorous. Pearl shook her head. “No. In fact, I used to work with them maybe two or three times a year, before they had some of the technology they have now.” I asked, “Did you work with Shiver today?” She nodded. “Lieutenant Shiver and I go way back.”

Chapter 19

The newspaper headline said, “Theft Ring Trial Set to Begin.” It gave Craig’s name, and listed the charges. “Expected to testify are members of the Ballard Police Department, including Lieutenant Dwayne Shiver, and Investigators Ron Cooksey, Jeffrey Tyson, and Terry ‘T.J.’ Lawhon. Also expected to testify are Clyburn’s former business partner Andrew Sutton and Hector Resendez, as well as other Hispanic employees of Sutton Tire and Auto.” I threw the paper onto the table. Pearl said, “They name every name, don’t they? I guess the trial itself will make the paper, too. Andy’s testimony.” She ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t think he’ll ever be able to open up the shop again. Maybe we should just sell it.”

192 “Then what’s he going to do when he gets out?” I forked another pancake onto Sean’s plate. “He’ll just have to find something, won’t he?” I poured some syrup over Sean’s new pancake, as per his request. But not too much. He didn’t need all that sugar, especially first thing in the morning. “Pearl, did you ever find out how to get in touch with Hector?” “Never did. Sean and I even went out there to try to find him, didn’t we?” He nodded, syrup smeared on his mouth. I said, “Went out where?” “To his family’s place. Two or three generations of them in one trailer, can you believe that? Out there past the hardware store on Old Whiddon Road.” “That trailer park?” I’d seen the place. Fifteen or so old, dented trailers in willy- nilly placement. The bottom halves of the pine trees painted white, old rusted cars and parts in the yards. Nothing but a car trail going through it. “You took Sean there?” “They had a dog,” Sean said. “A big dog. They let me pet him.” “It was fine, Meredith. Anyway, he wasn’t there. They said. Said he’d gone to Alabama or somewhere looking for work. All this business put him out of a job, you know. I hope he left, anyway.” “What do you mean, you hope he left? We may need him to put Craig behind bars. Otherwise, good lord, what if the jury finds Craig innocent and he gets to just walk away? You know as well as I do the whole thing had to be his idea. He’s got to pay.” I was trying to control myself for my boy’s sake. “Yeah, I do believe so, that it was all his scheme. But what I meant was, I hope Hector hasn’t been deported.” “They wouldn’t do that. They’ve got him on the list to testify.” “Different departments of the government, Meredith. The INS probably couldn’t care less if he needed to testify in some little theft trial in some little South Georgia nowhere town. Got to be tough on illegal immigration.” I could tell Sean was listening in, soaking up everything like his pancakes soaked up the syrup. I had no idea how much of it he’d be able to understand. “Pearl, do you think Hector is the one who, maybe, turned them in?”

193 “No.” She was always quick to defend him. “Why would he do that? Mexicans generally don’t trust the police here, and that’s just going to get even worse with all the INS stuff.” “That’s what I mean, though. What if they were onto him, threatening to deport him. What if he cut a deal himself?” Jeff had hinted strongly that that had been the case, but consider the source. She considered it. “I guess we’ll find out at the trial.”

Andy was back home. In Ballard, anyway. They wanted him to be there for the duration of the trial, since they couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d be called or how long he’d be up on the stand. He chewed his cuticles and bounced his knee. “Meredith, I really think you don’t have to take all this time off and watch this. What’s the use? It’s, what, two or three days of your life you’ll never get back.” “Just let me be there for you, Andy. That’s all I want.” That wasn’t exactly true. I wanted answers. I still wanted to know exactly what had happened, and exactly what my husband’s part in it was. Dr. Abe would say I had some definite trust issues. If I went on his show, he’d sit up there on one of those stools and ask me what I wanted from this relationship, what I hoped to get from Andy. I wanted answers. But I’d given up expecting to get them from him. Andy got up and paced the room. “There is no need for you to be there, Meredith. I appreciate the gesture, but I really don’t want you to come. Mama either. I’ve got all I can take just doing what they want me to do, for my part of it.” “You don’t want me there.” “I don’t want either one of you there. I’ll be fine. Promise me you won’t come.” I stood up to leave. “No, I will not promise you that.” You owe me this. You owe your mother, too. On the way out, I saw Jeff from the back, standing and talking to what’s-her-name at the front desk. Cynthia? Was that it? I went right up to him and asked him if I could talk to him for a minute. “Well, well,” he said. “Look who’s here.” He told Cynthia “This is Andy Sutton’s wife. You know who I mean? The Craig Clyburn trial, Sutton’s Tire and Automotive.

194 Remember?” She nodded and frowned at him. I walked off to the side and expected him to follow. He did and stood there with feet apart and crossed arms. Cop pose. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Sutton?” I couldn’t believe I’d ever let him touch me. “I want to know about Hector Resendez.” “What about him?” “He’s on the list to testify at the trial.” “Is that so?” “What’s he going to say, Jeff? What was his role in all this? Did he turn them in?” “I couldn’t rightly say what Mr. Resendez is or is not going to say up in front of a judge.” “So he is still around?” “I wouldn’t know. But to tell what he knows or to keep it to himself, it wouldn’t help him either way. Now or then.” “What do you mean?” He turned sideways to get ready to walk away. “I’m just saying, he could talk all he wanted to and it wouldn’t change his situation.” “Did he rat out my husband or not?” He smiled then, like he’d gotten an idea. He leaned forward toward me, his arms still crossed. “Yes, Meredith. He did.” He smiled still, triumphant. He had all the power. All the knowledge. Holding it over me, dangling it. I had no way of knowing if he was even telling me the truth and not just trying to get back at me. Fuck you. I walked away.

We showed up at the courtroom early, the same old courtroom from before, and had to wait in line once again to go through the metal detector nobody paid any attention to. The pews were mostly empty, but the main players were there—the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, Craig himself. His wife Loretta, sitting just behind the defense table. I didn’t know where we should sit, certainly not behind the prosecution, but not behind the defense, either. I suggested we sit in the middle. When I’d told Pearl Andy hadn’t wanted either of us to come, she’d put her foot down. “No, sir, we are too going to be there. We have as much a right as anybody else.”

195 I’d still felt angry. “He’s not the boss of me anymore.” And Pearl had looked amused. “I’m glad to see you’ve learned to stand up for yourself.” So today was the day she and I would start to get the answers we deserved. The bailiff called “All rise” and we stood, what few of us there were, and the judge came in. The same judge as before, McKellar. Andy’s lawyer, Fitzpatrick, wasn’t there at all. The judge called the case, State of Georgia versus Craig Allen Tyson. He looked at the prosecutors. “I understand, Mr. Jones, that the state requests a continuance.” Mr. Jones stood, straightening his suit and tie. “Your honor, we have not been able to locate the whereabouts of a key witness, Mr. Hector Resendez.” “Do you have a reasonable expectation of locating this individual?” “Your honor, we believe we have a good chance. A family member has told us they thought he had gone to Tennessee to find work.” Pearl and I caught each other’s eye. I knew for a certainty they weren’t going to find him. They wouldn’t have their all- important corroborating witness to Andy’s testimony. “Would a week be enough time to ascertain whether that was indeed the case?” The judge looked at Jones over his bifocals. “I think a week should be fair.” Judge McKellar then looked at the defense attorneys. “Mr. Simmons, do you have any objection to such a continuance?” Simmons stood. “We just don’t want this thing dragged out forever, Your Honor. We want a timely trial. But we suppose a week would be acceptable.” The judge banged his gavel, and that was that. We’d be in limbo for another week. Pearl patted my hand. In the bathroom, I was coming out of a stall to wash my hands, and Loretta, Craig’s wife, was just coming in the door. I nodded hey to her. She shook her head. “I thought we were friends, Meredith. I can’t believe I ever thought that.” I couldn’t believe she ever thought that, either.

196 Andy’s handwriting on that burgundy marble stationery was a relief. It was a thick envelope. I took it back to my room to read in privacy. My heart jumped to see his usual half-cursive, half-print script. Dear Meredith, I’m writing you from the prison now. They brought me back up here to wait for the trial. It was disappointing to get all mentally prepared to testify and then be told we have to wait another week. Another trip down to Ballard, where people I’ve known for years look at me in this orange jumpsuit. People who used to watch me play ball. These last months I’ve had a lot of time to think (wink). A lot of time to feel sorry for myself. A lot of time to try to blame other people for decisions I made myself. All this business with the trial coming up has got me thinking. And Jack, he’s my counselor here, he’s putting us through a program that’s almost like the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. He keeps implying that he invented this version of it. Anyway, I’ll get right down to it. It’s time for me to own up to it. My part in it. And I know you’ve been trying to get me to do it all along, to admit it. Jack says you probably need to hear it from me. You need to hear me say it. I get that. I’m a big boy now, etc. But for some reason I have a real hard time saying it out loud to you. It just hurts too much. It’s too shameful. Last time you came, I wanted to say all this but I couldn’t get to it, and I think that made you mad and I don’t blame you for that. It’s my weakness or my stubbornness or whatever. That’s why I’m writing it. Putting it down on paper for once and for all. The truth. First, how it all got started. It goes all the way back to when Craig first approached me for the job. Now, I’m not going to tell you that this was all 100% his fault, but I have to tell it like it really happened. I had a feeling right in that first interview that he wasn’t completely straightforward, like maybe he had a lot of schemes in his head. Business was bad and getting worse. That’s another thing I want to write about, I’ll get to it later. He said he had some ideas for generating more business. He talked about hiring the Mexicans, and he specifically said up front that we should get illegals because we wouldn’t have to pay them as much or pay the social security and insurance and so forth. That right there should’ve made me suspicious. But everybody’s doing it, etc., that was my thinking. He said he already knew a group that he trusted and

197 that did a good job, and he was right about that, except for a couple of them. Old Hector, bless his heart. Fitzpatrick said they can’t find him now to testify. Good for him, get the hell out of Dodge. Hector wasn’t ever a part of the illegal doings, aside from not having his papers, and he’d stand there and look at me with this disapproving look on his face. And he looked worried, too, like it was dangerous for him to be in that place with those kinds of things going on, but we paid him better than the farmers would have. I hope he’s all right. I hope he’s somewhere making a ton of money for his family. So it started with hiring the Mexicans. That’s when Sarah “retired” from running the front desk. She told me in person that she did not approve of our under-the-table business practices and she thought it didn’t bode well for the future of our company. She and Craig never got along at all. He was happy to be rid of her. I wonder now if she knew some other things Craig had gotten us into. I wish she’d have told me. Maybe I’d have headed it off at the pass early on. Maybe not. I don’t know. We were suddenly making a lot more money. We were paying the bills and a lot more, too. It was great. I noticed some of the records just weren’t matching up. The inventories and things like that. Craig said to let him take care of that, that he wasn’t good at recordkeeping and so he’d straighten it out, it was his fault. Then I caught some of the guys filing the numbers off of parts. Things became clear from there. I should’ve fired them all right then and there, but I didn’t think I could get the shop to float again by myself. I found a lot of things out gradually, over time. You wrap your brain around one thing and have plenty of time to get used to it before the next comes up. That’s how it worked, in my head. That’s how I got it to work. Did we receive stolen property? Yes. Did we operate as a chop shop? Yes. Did we also conduct legitimate business at the time? Yes. Majority of the guys worked legit jobs for us. Only Craig’s chosen trusted few did the others. Did he actually send guys out to steal cars and bring them in? Probably so, now that I think about it. At the time, I just assumed freelance guys would just bring in whatever they’d found. Did I know all this was going on? Not at first, but then later, yes. Did I do anything at all about it? No, I did not. These are the things they’re going to ask me in the trial. Fitzpatrick has put me through it for practice.

198 What they probably won’t ask me up there on the stand, but I know you want to know is, why I did it. You did ask me that once, Meredith, and it’s a perfectly good question. I don’t really know the answer, except that I was weak and under the influence of a guy I thought was exciting and cool and energetic and enthusiastic and I wasn’t feeling at all excited about the shop. So then why didn’t I make some other choices? Why didn’t I turn them in or fire them or sell the shop and do something else with my life? Jack has asked me these questions a number of times. I never wanted the shop, Meredith. I never wanted to do that. But it was so important to Daddy. It was his life, it was what he created from the ground up, and when he’d introduce me to a customer as his son working with him, his eyes would shine and he’d be so proud. I did like working with him. But it was just automatically understood, from the time I was in eighth or ninth grade, that I would go to tech school to learn that trade and then take my place there beside him. I never got to consider anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll say it again, I loved working beside him. I loved seeing that pride in his eyes. But I hated the job. I hated the place, the smell, the grease all over my hands and under my fingernails. I hated the noises and the fumes and the rubber marks. I just hated it. Every day. I’m ashamed of what I’ve done, Meredith. That’s why I wanted you to leave at first. Yes, at first, I did want you to go on and make a better life for yourself. Find somebody who was a better person inside. Deep down inside, I didn’t actually want you to leave, but I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror for a long time. Jack’s working with me on this. I know I said at first that the counseling was all bullshit, but I’m coming around. I’m glad you didn’t leave me. Maybe you thought about it. Maybe you considered it seriously. I don’t blame you. It’s hard to fight for you from in here, when I can’t even be with you, but I will fight for you, if that’s what you want. Or even if it’s not. I’ll try to convince you (wink, leer). You said you’re going to take classes. I think that’s great. You’ve got a lot of good brains in that head of yours, and a strong internal compass, as they say. And a good business sense. I get it now. When things got bad, I should have confided in you. I should have maybe asked for your help and then the shop wouldn’t have gotten in trouble in the first place. You go and you study whatever you are the least bit interested in because you

199 deserve it. I used to wonder what my life would’ve been like if we hadn’t gotten pregnant so soon. But it’s the same for you. You didn’t get a chance to think about life after high school either. So I feel like we’ve got a chance to start fresh, Meredith. Both of us. They’re also giving me some career counseling in here. I’m taking some tests to show me what fields of work I’m actually interested in. You do that, too. We were handed our paths earlier, but now we get to choose them. I feel like all of the bad decisions I made, and then getting arrested and the first days and weeks in prison—I feel like I’m on the other side of the big hump now. Just have to finish out my time, what I owe the state and to the people I’ve hurt. Things are changing for the better now, at least for me. I hope they are for you, too. I feel like I’ve talked your ear off in this letter. It feels good. If we communicate better in letters, then let’s do that for a while. I have an email address in here, and you’re welcome to use that. But I personally want to handwrite to you. Feels more honest, and it’s time for that. I do love you, Mer. I will fight to keep my family together now. Please write me back when you can. Give Sean a bear hug for me, and tell Mama I’ll be writing her a big long letter, too. He signed his name in cursive, formally, like a contract or an affidavit. Testimony.

Before we opened the salon the next day I grabbed Renee and asked her to do a reading for me. I told her I needed to know, now, about the future of my marriage. “That’s serious. Could you give me something simpler first thing in the morning?” I waited while she spread a new cloth over the table, a deep blue with woodsy leaves in dark green and earthy brown. She got her cards out of her fancy wooden box. She shuffled. She cut the deck three times. Just as she was about to pull out a card, I put my hand on hers to stop her. What if she drew the Three of Swords, with three swords stabbing into a red heart in a rain storm? Or the Ten of Swords, with a man lying dead, face-down on the ground and no less than ten swords stabbed into him. Those would not be good omens for the future of my marriage. Or any of a number of other doom-

200 forecasting cards? I would react against them and say no, they were not right. And Renee would say that the purpose, then, of them turning up in my reading would be for me to see my own reaction. The cards can do that—let you see deep down inside what you want, just based on how you react to what chance draws for you. If my gut reaction was that they were wrong, because I wanted my marriage to work out, then that was what needed to become clear in my mind. Fine, okay. But then the damned cards would stay in the back of my mind from then on, chipping away at my faith and my confidence. Putting suspicions in my mind at every subconscious turn. I took the deck from her. I turned them up so I could see their faces and looked for the Six of Swords. A family of three on a raft, father standing up in the back pushing and steering hard with a pole. The mother and small child draped, hunched over. Six swords in the raft blocking their view of their destination. “This,” I said, “is how things are now.” The water on the right side of the raft very choppy. The pole on the right side, too, pushing deeply into the river bottom to steer the raft to the clear, calm water on the other side. Cycle of difficulties coming to an end. That was the card I chose to represent the present. I’d had enough of swords. I looked through the deck and pulled out the Wheel of Fortune. “This, I do not believe in anymore. Fate, preordained destiny, chance. No, we get to make decisions in life. We have free choice.” Renee nodded. I put that card back. I got out The World. “This is what I want. Nothing less.” Self-actualization. The final card in the major arcana. Learning from all you’ve been through on your journey. Renee said, “Not much to ask for, huh?” “Never hurts to try.”

I wrote back to him on my pink, flowery stationery, my hand shaky, the letters tight, cramped. Dearest Andy, It was so good to finally know all of that, and to hear you say you want to fight for your family now. Your counselor was right. I needed to hear you admit what you did, and acknowledge what you’d done to us, too. It cleared a lot of things up. But there’s one more thing I need to know.

201 And then my hand stopped. I couldn’t make it go any further. How could I press him for the truth about Linda, when I wasn’t ready to talk to him about Jeff? My own shame. How would he feel about that, being stuck where he was and not able to fight for me? Or would he just give up, consider me unfaithful and unworthy then? Could I take that? But could I take not knowing about Linda? Maybe so. Maybe I didn’t even want to really know. Because here’s what I thought happened: that Linda did contact Andy, and maybe they got together a couple of times, and maybe she came to see him in prison a few times. They needed to see if the old flame was still there. But it wasn’t. She’d changed since her cheerleader days. He’d changed since then, too. They just didn’t click together anymore. And maybe they really needed to find that out for sure. I needed them to find that out for sure. For now, at least I could set those questions aside. I tore up the letter, tore it into many, many pieces and put them in the bottom of my trashcan.

The trial was anticlimactic. First, the investigators testified, in order of rank, the Lieutenant first. Each one repeated what the other had said, bolstering the testimony through sheer repetition. Later, Andy told me, because Fitzpatrick had told him, that they usually don’t do that except in really big cases—get several different officers to testify to the same thing—but they did in this case because they never did locate Hector. I, too, hoped he’d gotten himself out of Dodge. But I hoped the investigators would be enough. Andy testified next, looking sharp and handsome in his navy suit again. He’d gained some of his weight back and looked better rested. He even wore reading glasses to make himself seem more credible as a witness. It was a good look for him. He looked all- American and intellectual. He looked out and found us right away. Craig, in his suit, looked like a hoodlum who’d just put on a suit today. He frowned and pouted at the witnesses. Andy answered the prosecution’s questions honestly, simply, repeating what he’d already told me in the letter. This time, though, there were specific dates and names. When the prosecution told the defense he was their witness, Pearl grabbed my hand. The defense attorney went after Andy. Tried to poke holes in every single thing Andy had said. When he didn’t succeed in catching Andy out, he acted like he had caught

202 him out, pressing him and pressing him on the question of a date and whether Andy had talked to some man who had supposedly laundered money for them. You had to keep paying careful attention to realize the defense was just chasing its own tail. I looked at the jury. They seemed to be paying attention. The defense asked Andy the same question, about the same money launderer, yet again. Prosecutor Jones stood and said, “Objection, Your Honor. This individual has not been called to testify as to his supposed role in the events in question. Defense is trying to create a fog. Plus, this witness has answered to the best of his knowledge multiple times already.” Defense attorney Simmons was bent over, whispering with Craig. A second defense attorney stood and said, “Your Honor, it goes to reasonable doubt. This witness has testified that he received a deal from the prosecution in exchange for testimony.” Jones was still standing. “Objection!” The Judge said, “Y’all come up here.” The attorneys went up to the bench and talked with the judge, who covered the microphone with his hand. Craig was whispering furiously with their legal assistant. Then they all came back to their respective tables and spoke with their assistants for a minute. Simmons put his hands out to Craig, like calm down. The Judge looked at Andy and said, calmly, “Witness will answer the question.” Andy nodded. The Judge looked at the jury and said, “Jurors have the task in the case of every witness to decide the witness’s credibility.” He pointed a pen at the defense. “Continue.” Simmons moved forward then, hiking his pants waist up, and proceeded to ask Andy the same question several more times, raising his voice and getting right in Andy’s face. Jones, tired: “Objection, badgering.” Judge, not even looking up from his notes: “Sustained, move on.” “Your honor, no more questions of this witness.” “Mr. Jones, redirect?” Jones took an exasperated tone. “The state feels the witness has addressed everything previously.”

203 Judge McKellar looked at Andy. “Thank you, Mr. Sutton, you may step down.” The bailiff opened the back door and showed Andy through. He’d kept his cool the whole time. I was so proud. The Judge called a break and told us to be back in twenty minutes. As we walked out to the bathroom, Pearl grabbed my arm. “He did good. He did good, didn’t he?” I knew he had. He’d given it his best shot. I just hoped it would be enough. The whole trial lasted just two days, including all the side bars and the times when they asked the jury to leave, when Simmons and company made histrionic arguments for a mistrial. McKellar sighed a lot during those times and rolled his eyes. He looked at them over his bifocals, or rested his chin in his hand and tapped the pen on the top of his big desk. “Cut to the chase, Mr. Simmons,” he’d say. None of the Hispanic guys were called to testify, and I’m not sure why. Could they not locate any of them? Or were they worried whether this jury would find them credible? The jury was mostly middle-aged, white, female. According to Fitzpatrick, through Andy later, that was deliberately planned. Prosecution felt the motherly types would not overlook this kind of crime so easily. Defense felt they would if they had sons Craig’s age. Different theories of what a mother would do. The jury took just two hours, and returned a verdict at six-thirty in the evening. We were all tired. Everybody had dark circles under their eyes and wrinkled clothes. Pearl and I held hands. We wanted to believe in justice. I thought of the Justice card. A king with the scales in one hand and a huge upraised sword in the other. Swords again. The king was not blindfolded. McKellar asked the jury foreman, the one black woman in the whole group, to read their verdict. I held my breath. Loretta held her hands together in prayer. Guilty. On all counts, guilty as charged. Craig, standing to hear his verdict, shook his head and shifted around on his feet like he wanted to say something in protest. Loretta put her head in her hands and sobbed audibly. I took a deep, cleansing breath.

Craig got seven years. The judge was coming up on reelection. I wrote Andy a nice, long letter, telling him how much I’d missed him over these months, how it hurt when he’d been so distant. How much it meant to me that he admitted what he’d done

204 and, in Dr. Abe’s words, acknowledged what he’d done to us. I didn’t want to rub it in too much. But I said almost everything I wanted to say. I wrote him long descriptions of Tammy and Renee, saying I wished he knew them now. He’d get a kick out of them. I asked him if he remembered them from high school. I told him about Trent and why Trent was gone. I told him how we’d sort of taken over his mama’s business. I didn’t know how he’d feel about that. I asked him to tell me. I told him that Sean would start pre-K in January, after Christmas, and we were already trying to get him excited about it. That Pearl was going to take him to Sunday School again. He needed to get used to a school-like setting, away from me and his grandma, not to mention he needed a little deprogramming after his church experience with his other grandma. I wrote him about that. This was something that, somewhere along the lines, we’d stopped doing— sharing with each other, really talking. It felt good. I kissed the top sheet with pink lipstick and sealed the whole thing in a fat green envelope. He would appreciate my fashion sense, just for fun. His letter hadn’t just automatically fixed everything. But things sure seemed to be headed down a better road. I could see a future, maybe. I walked the letter out to the mailbox, under the pine trees right next to the highway. Big rigs still whizzing by, the wind stinging my face with sand from the roadside. The newspaper said the county engineers had just submitted a proposal to build a truck route that would re-route a lot of this traffic. That would be a good thing. I joined Pearl in the back yard, working on a new flowerbed around the edge of the patio. “Get down here. You’re the one who wanted to do all this.” I smiled. I dug my hands into the earth, making way for a new chrysanthemum. She could say whatever she wanted, but she’d been the one to pick them out. They bloomed vibrant yellow, lilac, rust, and burgundy. We were alternating the colors. Sean was working in the next flower bed, under Pearl’s bedroom window, to pull all the weeds out. He was helpful in small doses. “Pearl, did you ever try to read your own future in the cards?” She pinched the dead heads off a yellow mum. “The future’s tricky. Know what I mean?”

205 I shook my head no. She pulled the mum out of its plastic pot and handed it to me. “What’s done is done. And people do tend to be depressingly consistent. But really, the future, it’s like . . .” She spread her fingers out like sun’s rays. “Different possibilities. Each time you make a choice, it changes the next set of possibilities.” She didn’t look happy with her wording. “You get my point.” “No, not really.” The hole for that mum needed to be deeper. I pulled it back out and dug some more. “When I look in somebody’s future, if I can see it at all, I can see some of the possibilities. But then the very next time they do something, it might change everything.” “So we really do have free will?” “Of course.” She wiped sweat from her forehead and left a smear of rich soil, from where we had added bags of compost. Her tee shirt said, “Bloom where you’re planted.” We’d lost the miniature azalea bushes we’d planted here earlier. Probably too much sun. Or not the right acidity. “Have you decided what you’re going to study?” I was going back and forth between cosmetology and horticulture. One was a definite interest. The other was a definite job. “Not yet.” “Well,” she said, deadheading another one, “you’ve got time.”

206 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

For Sandra L. Giles, this dissertation completes a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Composition/Rhetoric from Florida State University. She received her M.A. and B.A. in English from Valdosta State University in 1991 and 1989. She also received an A.A. in English from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 1987. Sandra has been teaching college writing and literature classes since 1991 and has been on the Humanities faculty at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College since 1997. She writes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and scholarship, and has had work published in The Southeast Review, The AWP Pedagogy Papers, On Writing: A Process Reader, Feeling Our Way: a Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook, as well as other journals and anthologies. She has presented at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (AWP), the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), as well as other writing and teaching conferences. She also serves as a Teacher-Consultant for the Blackwater Writing Project, a unit of the National Writing Project out of Valdosta State University.

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