Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem Page 20

  The Lord works in mysterious ways, thought Memphis. Much like Melveena Strange.

  He removed the cloth from the cage, waking the birds. The finches fluttered and preened and warned. “Oh!” Melveena cooed, “they remind me of my Bone Pile Girls.”

  Memphis knew that the finches weren’t manly pets. But he liked their buff-colored bodies, their conversational murmurs to one another. He liked the way they both fussed over the tiny eggs that hid in the round nest. Those eggs were the center of the universe. “They’re a nesting pair, and they’ll be a tad nervous with you in here, Melveena. Don’t take it personal, all right?”

  “Your birds won’t hurt my feelings.” Melveena smiled.

  He felt a little embarrassed at having a woman in his kitchen. It was a nice kitchen, he thought, plain, clean, sun-lit, especially in the corner where John Lee would sleep no more. But he wondered if, as a bachelor, it showed when he wasn’t doing something quite right. For instance, he used folded kitchen towels instead of oven mitts. He thought that maybe women could tell these things.

  Since she was limited to the ingredients on hand, she made him a grilled-cheese sandwich. He sipped a cup of coffee, trying not to wince. He thought, a man could get used to this. He ate very little at home. He generally ate at the diner or drove through the window at the Burger Bonanza. How many years had it been since a woman had made him a meal? Melveena set the sandwich on a plate before him, and let her hand gently touch his shoulder. She stood there for a moment, as if comprehending him. “You shouldn’t wait forever for it, Memphis. You’ll enjoy it.”

  “I just wanted to say thank-you before I dug in.” He took a bite, chewed, swallowed. My goodness, but women could cook. “I should have given that boy a ride into town.”

  She sat across the table from him and smiled. “Angus is just fine hitching. A cousin drives down the road every five minutes or so. He’ll get a ride.”

  Memphis nodded. “I suppose that’s right. I heard something about his sister being pregnant. Any truth to that?” He regretted the question almost immediately. Police work was a hard habit to break.

  Melveena’s face stayed composed. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Well, the funniest thing. Garth stopped her and Angus out on a country road, last night. Turns out she was driving. Angus was teaching her how to drive his cousin’s truck.”

  “Bone Pile women don’t drive.”

  “Well, she’s learning. And Garth said the girl is pregnant.”

  Melveena nodded. “That’s what he wanted to talk about today. She’s a small child, even for a Bone Piler, and she’s popping out all over the place. Girls don’t get pregnant out of wedlock up there, Memphis, and they’re keeping her hidden away. They took her out of school. I’d feel better if I knew she were seeing a doctor. But they’ve got her up where they think she’s safe, and they won’t let her come down.”

  “I suppose Angus is pretty upset. Knowing his sister is carrying some Ochre Water boy’s baby. I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

  “Oh, he’s upset. But he’s not upset enough to do anything about it, if that’s what you’re worried about. None of those Bone Pile men seem to think the situation needs addressing.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” The last thing the Sheriff needed was another murder to solve.

  “A relief? I think it’s a disgrace. But I suppose it is for the best.” Melveena said it all with an arched brow, a slight sneer. She let him know with her expression that where she came from, anyone who got a fourteen-year-old girl pregnant would get what was coming to him.

  Oh, thought Memphis, what did women know about these things? Women were too protective, too caring to ever be truly just. That was why law enforcement was overwhelmingly peopled with men. A mother would hide the evidence of her son’s malfeasance, lie to the cops who came to arrest him, and write to her son on Death Row, crying to the world that her baby was just misunderstood. No, women were too nurturing. Women might talk about justice, but men had to make sure it was accomplished. “If her parents want to, they can surely press charges.”

  She cocked those perfectly plucked brows. “You expect Bone Pile to turn to the law?”

  “If they want justice, they’d better.”

  Melveena smirked again. “The law has limits when it comes to justice.”

  He was uncomfortably aware of the truth of that statement. But he’d never spoken of that with another living soul, and he wasn’t about to start. “I think you’re mixing up justice and vengeance, Melveena.”

  “Well, maybe I am. Justice requires a cool head. Vengeance requires wrath.”

  “Wrath is the work of gods, Melveena.”

  Her smile, a flashing arrangement of perfect teeth and pink gums, shone out. “Wrath is the work of women and gods.”

  She stood up and turned her back on him to rinse the dishes.

  He sat and admired the view.

  He asked as mannerly as he could, “Before you wash that fry pan, could you possibly make me another sandwich?” She did, mindful of her porcelain nails. He watched her precise ways with a butter knife and plastic spatula and wondered if there were a mannerly way of asking a woman to relieve a man of his virginity.

  MELVEENA LEFT MEMPHIS topped off, tucked in and doped up. That man, she thought, is a gem. Oh, my goodness.

  Gems. There was business to attend to.

  She knew there was no point in returning to work for the day. If the Bone Pile women insisted on keeping their kids home, there would be, quite simply, no school to go to within the year. She knew she had to attend to that. But first, she drove over to the Ochre Water Savings and Loan. The president of said establishment came out to meet her and show her in, smiling at her, admiring her immaculate white gloves, the crisp way her heels tapped the granite floor.

  She went alone to a small room and opened the drawer. There were papers, of course, certificates, deeds, all under her maiden name. Those, she bundled up and tucked into her Fendi purse. Then she took out a brown paper bag and emptied it on the viewing table in a heap. There it was, all the precious treasure of Melveena Strange. She slipped off her gloves and used her perfectly manicured nails to sort through the trove.

  There were the promise rings, those sweet slender bands that held the flintiest chips of diamonds, birthstones, seed pearls. She held them in her palms, smelled the tangy sweat of those boys back in Toad Suck who had mowed grass and cleaned gutters and raked leaves, all for the privilege of laying something so small away at Ben Bridge in the wild hopes of capturing her heart with a promise. She smiled. She let a trail of them fall like golden nickels into her change purse.

  There were strings of pearls. She fondled these. The nacre of each strand was subtly colored by the body oils, each strand imbued with the essence of generations of Strange women. Her women. Their faces, smiles, tears, dreams flashed before her like a rain of what she was, where she belonged. How had she come to be the last, she wondered? She found the oldest and smallest strand, pinkish-brown, and clasped it around her neck. Then she let the strands fall and click, like bullets loading, into the pockets of her linen jacket.

  There were gold bangles, necklaces with dainty pendants, dress watches encrusted with more gems than a wedding set. Some were gifts from suitors, some were gifts from admirers who sent these things to Melveena every year, long after she married Clyde. These men asked only for the privilege of clasping her wrist or her neck with something precious. Melveena had never worn a one of them. She held each a moment. As she did, she could see clearly the hopeful face of each suitable man who had failed to win her heart but never forgotten her. All these went back in her purse.

  She was left with seven gaudy cocktail rings. Why did men think that women wanted anything that could be measured by total carat weight? There were decent stones hiding in all the glitz of them, but the idea of pavé. Really, it was just horrifying, what a woman had to smile and accept gracefully.

  Melveena studied the monstrosi
ties. Most had been bestowed on her by living relatives. All those relieved faces, saying, “I was going to leave this to you, Melveena, but you might as well wear it while I’m alive.” Those women had never worn those rings, and Melveena hadn’t, either. This one, a grandmother’s. This one, an aunt’s. There were several that she had inherited from the mother who had died giving birth to her.

  She sighed, and reached into her purse. She brought up a Baggie with seven rings. She opened it, dumped them out on the table. Two crosses, the horseshoe, the shamrock, and four more, all so ugly, so fake, so worthless. She was supposed to have eight of his rings, not seven. Where, she wondered, had that lion gone?

  She counted the rings again just to make sure. Then she made another little pile. Seven cocktail rings. With the sapphire, that made eight. She looked at the sapphire, so red and odd. So strange. If Melveena held it and closed her eyes, she could smell the lilac perfume of the woman who gave it to her scenting the air of that small room in the savings and loan.

  She opened her eyes and looked at her wedding set. A quarter carat solitaire and a channel-set band with ten stones. Her greatest mistake had bought them in a Vegas pawn shop and welded them together himself. That was not the wedding set that any of her admirers in Toad Suck would have provided for her. But the diamond was a fine one, she’d made sure of that. And those were cut diamonds, not chips, in the wedding band. Melveena had no interest in shabby stones.

  She slipped off her wedding ring and dropped it in the pile on the table. Eight rings.

  She slipped the cabochon sapphire on her finger. She held her hand high in the light of the window and watched how it glowed, and felt, still faintly, the sweet smile of the woman who gave it to her.

  One by one, she let eight diamond rings fall into the drawer of the safe deposit box. Eight rings, the rings of her aunts, grandmothers, mother. What a funny little clank each one made as it hit the metal of the safe-deposit box. She closed and locked the box, and folded the key into a letter written on her crisp personal stationery and slipped it into a pre-addressed envelope. Her tongue flicked out from between her dyed lips to wet it, a graceful finger with a manicured nail sealed it.

  She put on her gloves and touched the Reverend’s rings for what she hoped would be the last time, pushing them off the edge of the table and into the Baggie with a shudder. She sealed it and tucked it deep in her purse. She rapped on the door.

  The eager president opened it immediately. “Ready to go?”

  “Oh, I should say I’m ready to go,” she purred.

  She walked out of the bank, jingling with secret burdens.

  TENDER WOKE, WRAPPED in a blanket in the heat of the afternoon, the sun in his eyes. He rolled to one side. There was yellow dust in his eyes and mouth.

  He sat up and looked around. He was in a shallow impression on the top of a very slight rise. He looked out to see the yellow earth stretching in all directions. There was room here. Room to figure out what to do. He stood up and walked a few paces to relieve himself. His urine dried almost immediately upon hitting the parched desert floor. Then he walked back and found a water bottle, hot from the sun. He had a swig. Like drinking water in the shower. He sat down and put the blanket over his head for shade.

  He needed to think.

  He’d sat most of the night in the Ochre Water police station, blood on his knuckles, ink on his fingertips. It wasn’t even light when they told him he could make a call. Oh, the thought of hearing Rhondalee’s voice, that made him want to volunteer for a night in a cell.

  So he’d picked up the phone and called her, instead. He’d never called her, never even spoken to her, but he knew her phone number by heart. It was written in restrooms throughout the county, scribbled next to the pay phones he used to call home and explain to his wife that he would be home in fifteen minutes, or perhaps fifteen hours. For a good time, call…

  So he’d called.

  She’d answered on the third ring, not saying anything, just breathing into the receiver.

  “Hello, Fossetta.” He hated the weak sound of his voice, the sound of a man too weak to call his own wife, too ashamed to call his own brother. So he brought his weakness and his shame to her. It’s me. Tender. I’m at the police station. I got arrested. He’d waited for her to say something, She hadn’t. I need 272 dollars and someone to come get me.

  Finally, she’d sighed. And in that sigh, he’d known she would help him.

  And that was how he’d come to be riding beside Fossetta Sweet in her Buick station wagon, her profile softly lit by the green glow of the dash, her delicate hands on the steering wheel. What had he wanted to say, in that short ride from Ochre Water to the Park? What temptation did she offer, what confession would he make, what devotion could he offer? He stayed mute.

  Fossetta had parked in front of her trailer. She sat at idle for a moment. Only for a moment. Turned the key and left it in the ignition. The car barely shifted as she rose from it. He’d watched as she entered her home. She hadn’t looked over her shoulder once.

  He’d wrestled then, wrestled with every demon that had ever haunted him. The nights of his adolescence were nothing compared to these moments alone in a station wagon in a trailer park in the middle of the desert. He was broken on the wheel of fire, and he knew he was lost to sin, but he still stopped at the stairs and took off his boots because the habit was bred so deeply into him.

  It was dark when he entered her trailer, feeling his way down the hall, tripping over everything strewn on the floor, making his way by touch to where he knew she had to be. He’d stood for a moment, hearing his own heart. He’d turned on the light because he had to see her.

  She’d stood next to her bed on legs that seemed part of the earth from which she sprang. She hadn’t seemed surprised that he’d followed her, or alarmed. She’d just looked back with her odd eyes. Waiting. He’d studied every inch of her. Memorizing her. Her neck was long and graceful, rising from elegantly arched collarbones. Her smooth chest, the only place on her body where her skin was thin, was traced with a delicate delta of veins. Her white breasts sat full, firm, and round. Her wide hips sloped smoothly from her small waist. Her stomach, the cup of her navel well-deep, the curling blonde hair that hid where she branched, those dimpled, sturdy legs that joined her body to the earth; he studied all of her. She was made for passionate men. Her body could cushion the force of a man’s taking, cradle him in resilient warmth, rock him in the gentleness of the night.

  He’d wanted to cry because she was so beautiful.

  He’d stumbled blind back down the hall, burst out of the screen door, staggered across the street and looked back at his home. The air had churned around him, gathering and grey. He’d looked at his wife’s mailbox, at the chicks and hens and roosters painted on the galvanized metal, that mailbox trying so hard to be cheerful in front of that trailer. The paper was there. It was almost a new day. He’d stood in the carport across Sweetly Dreaming Lane, and looked at the two trailers, one holding everything he’d ever had, the other holding all he’d ever wanted.

  He burned, groaned, ground his teeth.

  The door to the LaCour doublewide opened, and his lawfully wedded wife had stepped out in the grey morning light in her leopard print robe. She had gone to the mailbox. Paper in hand, she’d spun on a slippered heel and tripped back up the clean white gravel walkway, and decisively slammed the door behind her.

  Rhondalee.

  She’d walked with those careful steps he’d always admired. A head-tossing, polished, tight woman, a woman with dreams, hopes, standards. A woman with drive. He had seen the Rhondalee of thirty-plus years ago transposed on that sharp little figure.

  She was blonde back then, with a flirty arch to her eyebrows, sheer stockings, tight sweaters, tiny high heels tripping around the dirt grounds without a stumble. Six years older than Memphis, nine years older than Tender, Rhondalee Hempel smelled of experience, something both the LaCour boys lacked. When he was seventeen years old, she cast
her small green eyes across him on the stage and he felt his identity pull into wholeness for the very first time. All the different things Tender had been, a child of the reservation, a student of the boarding school, a stolen son, an indebted brother, a grudging Catholic, a slapdash Baptist. Too many selves, too pulled apart. But when he saw her, he’d become the man who wanted Rhondalee.

  But so had Memphis.

  It had taken a year for her to make up her mind. He remembered that time with shame, the blood in his eyes, the hammering of his heart, that twisting on the hook she put him through while she decided which of the brothers she would marry. There were times when they came to blows. Both of the LaCours honestly felt that it was a matter of life and death, having her.

  Their star was rising on the Gospel circuit. Their songs took on an edgy harshness that made the young girls flock to the stage, something more immediate than Jesus on their minds. Their mother had died, and they’d brought themselves home to Rosebud, not even speaking to one another. They’d stood guard at their mother’s funeral, making sure that her last wishes were honored, that no priests would be allowed to speak at her graveside, desecrating her farewell with their child-stealing, guilt-ridden ways. They’d gone back out on the circuit, Rhondalee managing to be in every town, at every revival, and no one knew what inspired the quavering pain in their voices; the love of God, the loss of their mother, or the desire for that little blonde who couldn’t make up her mind.

  When she chose Tender, they dissolved the duo and went their separate ways.

  Some events are irremediable. So is time. Time had had its way with Rhondalee, so much more than her husband ever had. And yet, she was still in there, he knew it. But he no longer cared. He no longer wanted her. He no longer loved her. And he no longer knew who he was.

  Tender had felt it shaking him down to the soles of his bare feet. He felt like he was flying into pieces. And some of them flew this way, and some flew the other. What bound him together was loosened, and as the sun rose in earnest, Tender shook like a cottonwood in a windstorm. He turned to face the grey. He’d made his way out to the desert by instinct.