Deaths of Jocasta (24 page)

“Joanne. What about Alex? Is it worth losing her over me?”

“Micky, I know some rule book somewhere says we’re not supposed to do this, but real life isn’t played by the rules. My life certainly hasn’t been.”

“Cordelia told me that Alex was over at her place last night.”

“So? They make a good couple,” Joanne said.

“Not like that. Tea and sympathy. Alex was crying, Cordelia said,” I explained, hoping to elicit some guilt from Joanne.

“Good. She can use something to cry over.”

“Joanne? How can you be so…?”

“Cruel? Callous? Look, honestly, I don’t like making Alex cry, but my sleeping with you is hardly the end of the world. If she and Cordelia want to run around and pretend that it is, that’s their problem, not mine,” Joanne answered.

“How about me? I don’t like making Alex cry.” Or Cordelia despise me.

“You’re not, don’t think that you are. Her most poignant childhood memory is of some cat being run over. That’s it. My father used to throw cats against the side of the garage when he was drunk. And if he was drunk enough, us kids, too,” she added bitterly.

“That’s not Alex’s fault.”

“No, it’s not. But it’s not my fault that she lives in a safe, little blue-blooded world.”

“That makes it okay to cheat on her?” I demanded.

“I’ve made no promises. We’re not Danny and Elly, with joint accounts and house-buying plans. I’ve never said forever, and I’ve never said I wouldn’t sleep with somebody else. Maybe she expected it. I guess that’s the way they do things. If you sleep together for over six months, then it’s permanent and indelible. If she’s crying, it’s only because she has expectations I can’t meet.”

Joanne put her arms around me and pulled me on top of her.

But I had one more question.

“Do you love her?”

“Yes,” she finally said. “But love isn’t always enough.”

She kissed me. We made love without saying anything more.

“Joanne?” I said when we were finished and I lay next to her in her arms. “Why isn’t love enough?”

“Shit, Micky, sometimes you ask the oddest questions.”

“Philosophy major. Bent me all out of shape.”

“Then you should have a better answer than I do. If I had any real answers, I could stay with Alex. Not be mucking around,” Joanne replied.

“Don’t worry about me. Great sex, good company. I’ll be fine.”

“But I do worry about you,” she said, brushing her hand against my cheek.

“You’re not doing anything to me. At least nothing that I don’t want done.”

“Not yet. Give me time. Where do we go now?”

“Whenever we get temperamental, in opposite directions,” I said half seriously.

“We’re both so angry. Too angry, I suspect. But I wanted someone who knows what it was like to be hit as a kid.”

“No one ever hit me,” I said.

“What about your aunt and uncle?” she questioned. “They never hit you?”

“No, not really. I was spanked a lot. My cousins sometimes hit me, but they were kids.”

“Older or younger?”

“Bayard was five years older. Still is, I guess. Mary Theresa three years and I was a little older than Gus,” I answered.

“Which one hit you?”

“Well…Bayard, mostly.”

“Anything else?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Why do you think?”

“Were you abused?” I asked her.

She didn’t reply at first.

“Yes,” she finally said. “But I don’t want to talk about that now.”

“Neither do I.”

We lay still, holding each other tightly. When we woke the next morning we were still next to each other, Joanne’s arm around my waist.

We made love again, before Joanne left for work. She had brought a change of clothes this time. After she left, I took a quick shower and got dressed, planning to go on to the clinic. I didn’t dawdle, but I didn’t hurry either. I was reluctant to run into Cordelia.

It was going to be a hot day, I noticed as I got into my car. That didn’t put me in a more cheerful frame of mind. Nor did the line of protesters in front of the clinic. The parking lot was jammed. Park and Protest, I gathered. I finally parked by blocking Cordelia’s car.

I got out and glowered at the ragtag line of protesters.

“Are you here to have an abortion?” One of them accosted me, a young man with perfectly combed brown hair.

“No,” I answered. “I’m here to have all the cars that don’t have legitimate business in this building towed. Starting with yours,” I added.

“You can’t…” he started.

“Private property, buddy. I’m going to get a list of license plates that belong here. Any not on that list is gone. Got that?”

I turned away from him and marched into the building. Then ran up the stairs to a room overlooking the parking lot. The right-to-lifers were doing their best exodus imitation. I guess they weren’t willing to get towed for the cause. I had no idea whether I could really get their cars towed, but I saw no point in telling them that. I went downstairs to the clinic.

“Hi, Micky,” Bernie greeted me. She, at least, seemed happy to have me here.

“Hello, Miss Knight,” Nurse Peterson said.

“How’d you find a place to park?” Bernie asked. “I ended up a block away.”

“The power of suggestion,” I replied. “I suggested that if their cars didn’t belong in the lot, they would be towed.”

Bernie burst out laughing. Nurse Peterson looked like the idea of such deviousness was unthinkable. But virginity will do that to you.

“Plenty of parking places now,” I added.

“Maybe if those weirdos are gone by lunchtime, I’ll move my car,” Bernie said.

“Do you trust me?” I asked, sitting on her desk.

“Absolutely,” she replied.

“Give me your car keys.”

“Brave woman,” she said as she fished them out of her purse.

“No, you are. Letting me drive your car.”

“Bernie, what happened to my nine thirty?” Cordelia asked as she came down the hallway to Bernie’s desk. She stopped abruptly when she saw me perched on it, with Bernie handing me her car keys. “Hi, Micky,” she said stiffly.

“Morning, Dr. James,” I replied.

“Can’t we do anything about those damn protesters?” Cordelia said shortly.

“We’ve cleared the parking lot. Or Micky has,” Bernie answered.

“How?” Cordelia asked, then, “Never mind,” when she noticed it was me she was asking.

“I told them I was a card-carrying deviant and that I would spit on their cars, thereby ensuring that all their kids would turn out queer,” I retorted, irked at her shortness.

Cordelia gave me a furious don’t-you-dare-mention-gay look.

“Fine. Whatever works,” she finally said, not in a pleasant tone of voice. “Call Mrs. Jenkins and get her to reschedule. The earlier the better,” she added to Bernie. Then she went back down the hall to her office.

I borrowed a note pad from Bernie, on which I made up a list of probable license plate numbers.

“Good luck getting through the line,” Bernie added after she gave me directions to where her car was.

After snarling my way through the protesters, I found Bernie’s car and drove it back to one of the many vacant parking spaces. Then I wandered around the lot, pretending to check tag numbers, every once in a while scowling at the protesters. After re-parking my car, I sat on its hood, the guardian of the lot. Every car that pulled in, I asked what their business was. Politely, of course. I didn’t want to scare away any more of the patients than already had been. Any of those that wanted or seemed to need it, I escorted into the building. I sent a few right-to-life reinforcements out into the cold, cruel world of parking in the street.

By late morning, the sun was beating down, making the sunny side of the street a toasty place to be. I was perched on the hood of Cordelia’s car, which was parked in a comfortably shady corner of the parking lot. The right-to-lifers, not an attractive crew to start with, were looking boiled and bedraggled. God makes the sun shine, I thought merrily.

A car drove into the lot, pulling alongside Cordelia’s.

“Hi, Micky,” Alex said as she got out.

“Oh. Hi, Alex,” I replied.

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

“The anti-choice forces are clustered…”

“Not them. They’re old hat. What are you doing hanging out in the parking lot?”

“Guarding the forces of light against the evil of bigotry,” I answered.

“Uh-huh, that’s about what I figured,” Alex replied.

“What are you doing here?”

“I heard you were here,” she bantered.

“Right.”

She leaned against the hood.

“I’m trying to find out what everyone seems to not want to tell me. C.J. called me last night and arranged a lunch date, with her there’s-something-you-need-to-know voice. Then Joanne called this morning just after I got to work, also wanting to meet me for lunch and asked me to put Cordelia off. So I called C.J. and she said it was a good idea for me to see Joanne first. Then she suggested dinner tonight. Anyway, Joanne just called saying she couldn’t make lunch, how about dinner, in her serious, we-must-talk voice. So you want to go to lunch and tell me what’s going on?” Alex asked. “I could even get sandwiches and we could have a picnic in the parking lot,” she added.

“Uh…thanks, Alex, but us guardians of justice must never relax our vigilance.”

“Not even for an oyster po-boy?”

“Besides,” I said in a more serious tone, “You should probably talk to either Joanne or Cordelia first.”

“Oh, no, not you, too,” Alex moaned. “But you know what’s going on?” she queried.

“Well…yeah.”

“Actually, you’d probably be the best person. C.J. and Joanne are both likely to be too serious about the whole thing. You and I could probably put it in the proper perspective.”

“Oh, Alex.” I shook my head.

“Don’t worry. I’m not carrying a small pearl-handled revolver in my purse. I’m not even carrying a purse. You’re the ‘other woman,’ aren’t you?”

“Oh, shit, is it that obvious?”

“No, but given Joanne’s schedule, the list of possibilities wasn’t very long. Besides, I was kind of hoping it would be you.”

“Hoping?” I looked at her incredulously.

“Well, yeah. Let’s be adults. I always figured the two of you would have to sleep together or start throwing punches. I’m glad it’s the former and not the latter.”

“I don’t know what to say, Alex.”

“Then let me talk. I’m good at it. Can I ask a question? How is she?”

“Joanne? Okay, I think. It’s hard to tell. Angry. At times.”

“Yeah, something’s gotten to her. But she won’t talk to me. I care about her…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry, Alex. I never meant…I’m the fuck-up here,” I finished.

Alex put her hand on my shoulder.

“Remember, we’re supposed to be adults,” she said. “Besides, I sleep with Joanne Ranson. I know better than to fall for that ‘Micky Knight is an evil Donna Juana’ shit. You’re not the villain, I’m not the villain, and Joanne’s not the villain. If there is a villain, well, I think we’d have to go a long way back to find him.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s one of those things Joanne doesn’t talk about. But…one day my mother was over. My mother knows all about me and is happy that I’m with a respectable officer of the law.”

“Yeah, you could be with a scruffy semi-employed P. I.,” I couldn’t resist adding.

“In which case my mother would be happy that I was with someone who is independent enough to follow her own path. My mother is that type of person. Anyway, she was over visiting us, being my mother. I think she and Joanne ended up talking about why we don’t live together. What impact being found out could have on our careers, particularly Joanne’s. My mother was her usual, wonderful, sympathetic self. After she left, we went to Joanne’s.

“Late, after eleven, the phone rang. I picked it up. I thought it was the wrong number, a slurred, drunken voice. Until she demanded to speak to Joanne.”

“Her mother.” I could see where this story was going.

“Uh-huh. They talked for about fifteen minutes, Joanne’s expression getting angrier with every minute that passed, her replies terse monosyllables. Until she said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ and slammed down the phone. Then yanked the plug out of the wall. I made some offhand comment about don’t forget to re-plug it in the morning. Joanne started yelling that she’d plug her phone in whenever she felt like it and didn’t need me to tell her how to run her life, and so on. I did realize that she wasn’t really angry at me; I just happened to be there.”

“Lucky you,” I broke in.

“Usually she flares for a minute or two, then gets control. But this time she didn’t. She continued, finally going at me for my pampered existence. No drunken moms in my family.”