Entering Normal (10 page)

Again he motions toward the alcove. “I just have a few questions.”

“So ask.”

“How did it happen?”

Opal's gaze shifts. “What?”

“Your son's injury. What caused it?”

There is a slight hesitation. “He slipped. In the tub.”

Rose can't read the doctor's expression, but even a blind man could see that's a bald-faced lie.

“In the tub?”

“Yes,” Opal says, her voice more confident.

“There is a bruise on his upper thigh. Can you explain that?”

“Explain it?”

“Yes. A rather significant bruise on his left thigh. How did it happen?”

The college boy on crutches and an older couple are openly staring at Opal.

“How the hell should I know? He's a boy. He plays at the playground. Sometimes he falls down.”

Boys bounce.
In spite of herself, Rose feels a flash of satisfaction.

“Why the fuck are you asking me these things?”

“It's just routine. We have to fill out forms. Mandatory reports from the emergency physician, cases like this.”

“Cases like this? What the hell does that mean?”

Rose can see from the doctor's expression that Opal's belligerence is not helping.

“Shit,” Opal says. “What? You think I hurt my son? You think I'd do anything to hurt Zack? Are you crazy? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Relax, Miss Gates.”

“He's my son. I wouldn't do anything to hurt him.”

“Calm down.”

Calm down.
That's what the nurse told Rose when she asked if she couldn't see Todd.
Calm down.
They are in charge. You are at their mercy.

“No one's accusing you of anything. We're required to ask these questions. It's simply procedure we have to follow in cases like this.”

“Like what? Why do you keep saying that?”

“Were you alone with your son when he fell?”

“Alone?”

“Yes. When Zack fell, was anyone else there?”

Opal sinks back into the chair. “This is crazy. You can't believe I'd hurt Zack. He's all I have. I
love
him.”

“Were you alone?” he asks again. “Did anyone witness the accident?”

Opal doesn't speak.

“You have to answer these questions, Miss Gates.” He scribbles something on the margin of his report. “Would you like me to call our social worker? All right, then. Were you alone when the accident occurred? Did anyone else see it?”

“I did.”

Both faces turn to Rose.

“And you are?”

Having uttered two words—words that still seem to hang, to echo in the air—Rose is incapable of further speech.

“Your name?” The doctor waits, pen poised over clipboard.

“Rose Nelson.” Opal takes over without missing a beat. “Mrs. Nelson is my neighbor.”

Rose could just bite her tongue. What in the world had she been thinking?

“And you were there when it happened?”

“She just stopped by for coffee,” Opal continues. “I had just finished giving Zack his bath and while I was answering the door, he got back in to get his boat. He must have slipped, because he started crying.”

Rose is appalled at how easily Opal lies, how innocently she faces the doctor while lies just trip out of her mouth.

“Is that true?” he asks Rose.

What can she say now?
I wasn't there.
She doesn't know how to retract the words. She nods.

The doctor finishes jotting his notes, then closes the folder.

“I want to see him now,” Opal says. “I want to see Zack.”

Rose stares at her feet, unable to look anyone in the eye, as if she is the guilty one. Lord, she thinks again. What have I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER 10

OPAL

THE TOTAL FOR THE X RAYS, DOCTOR'S FEE, AND emergency room fee comes to nearly four hundred dollars. Opal hands over her Visa. Lord knows how she'll pay it off. Naturally they've charged her for the additional X rays, pictures she didn't want and that revealed no other breaks or fractures, something Opal could have told them if they'd only asked. Like they'd believe her. Policy, they said. Well, fuck policy.

Earlier the doctor gave Zack something for pain and he's listless. Vulnerable. The sooner they're out of here, the happier she'll be. When she returns to the waiting room, Rose is nowhere to be seen. The ladies' room, Opal thinks. She could sure use Rose for moral support. The woman is as plain as a slice of bread, but there is something solid about her, something dependable that Opal needs right now.

“Mrs. Nelson called a taxi,” the admitting nurse informs her.

Opal is disappointed. She wants to thank her for backing up her story with the doctor. Couldn't you just have flattened her with a poleax when Rose spoke up and said she had been there when Zack got hurt.

Opal knows for sure her own mama wouldn't have lied for her. Melva preaches honesty like it's her own special religion.

She doesn't want to be thinking of her mama just now. She can imagine what Melva will have to say about Zack's arm. Her mama would get her pinched-lip look and act like this is exactly what she would expect to happen. Like it was Opal's fault he fell. Like Opal isn't to be trusted with having a child. Just another thing she can't do right. She hates to think of what Melva would say if she found out she'd left Zack alone when he broke his arm. That would be something she would hold over Opal's head for the rest of her life. Like her pregnancy. Like her refusal to marry Billy. Another subject her mama just can't seem to get off of.

Don't you love Billy? Melva would ask.

How could she tell her mama that what she felt for Billy was lust, pure and simple. Can't her mama see love isn't supposed to be like what she and Billy had? Love isn't about accusations, about feeling less than. Opal is holding out for something more.

Right then, as she and Zack are leaving the hospital, Opal understands she can't go back to New Zion. Even if she wanted to, which she decidedly doesn't. In September when she threw that Monopoly die and headed north, she was choosing something else for her and Zack, even if she wasn't exactly clear on what it was. And that changed everything. There are lines in life that, once a person crosses over them, there's no going back to the other side. Trouble is you don't always know there's a line you're stepping over until you're already halfway across. That's why keeping an eye out for signs is so important. It helps prepare you.

She surely does not have the least idea of what kind of life waits for her here in Normal or in the next place she lands. She only knows she can't go back to the way things were in New Zion. This lack of resolution could be depressing, but she tries to think of it as hopeful. Even today, with Zack's broken arm, she believes in the possible. Anything can happen. Any wonderful thing.

Of course, this is another thing she and Billy disagree on. He expects the worst. The bumper sticker on his pickup reads,
Shit Happens
. She wouldn't have something like that on her car in a million years. Talk about asking for trouble.

All Opal knows is that she was
led
to Normal. She's traveling on faith here.

As they cross the parking lot to the Buick, the sky darkens. “Looks like a storm coming on, bud,” she says to Zack.

“I have a cractured arm,” he says, using this information as leverage to break the backseat rule and sit up front with her.

They haven't even gone a mile when his lower lip begins to tremble. “I don't want a cractured arm.”

Opal could sure use some help here. Unbidden, Melva's voice takes up residence.
You made your bed, girl, you lie in it.
Another of her mama's cherished philosophies. Opal reaches over and pulls Zack across the bench seat, closer to her.

“Do you know what that means, bud? It means the bone got hurt.

That's all. Like when I cut my hand on the broken glass at Melvama's.” She takes her hand from the steering wheel and turns it palm up so he can see the thin scar. “Remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, your arm got hurt, but it'll get better; it'll heal exactly like my hand did.”

“It will?”

“It surely will.”

“Why do I have to have a cast?”

“Oh, that's just a big old bandage. That's all it is.”

“Okay,” Zack says. He lays a moist hand on her thigh and huddles closer.

They barely drive two blocks when the rain begins to come down full strength, striking the windshield with the sharpness of hail. Opal circles past the library and continues down Main, her attention divided between the road and Zack. A familiar edginess strikes her, what Billy calls her “can't-hit-a-moving-target” mood. No way she feels like going home now.

She pulls into the Creamery's parking lot. “Want something to eat, bud?”

“Actually, the doctor said I'm not supposed to get my cast wet.”

Lately he'd been starting every other sentence with that word:
Actually, I'm not tired. Actually, I want a Coke.
Opal doesn't know where he picked up the word, but she loves the way it makes him sound. Like a little professor.

She digs around the backseat until she retrieves a plastic grocery bag. “Here. We'll wrap your arm in this. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says in a bitty voice.

Their waitress is dressed in just about the ugliest brown uniform on earth. A fluted cap sits on her head, one you wouldn't catch Opal wearing in a million years. It looks exactly like the cup Dr. Wallace's hygienist fills with mouthwash. The name badge identifies her as Tammy, which Opal flat out can't believe. Tammy is
her
baptismal name: Tammy Raylee Gates. For a fact, she knows this coincidence has to be some kind of sign, but she's too wiped from the morning to consider it right now. The only thing she knows is that of all the names on the planet, Tammy is the one she hates the most. Later, she will realize she should have gotten straight out of there the second she saw the woman's name. How could she have ignored an
obvious
sign? The irony alone should have alerted her.

“WHY'D YOU NAME ME AFTER HER?” SHE ASKED MELVA WHEN she was ten. “Tammy's a stupid name.” Her mama turned vague, the way she did when she was avoiding unpleasantness and said, “Your Aunt Tammy is a good friend of mine.” Like that was a reason to saddle a kid with a name like that. And—technically—Tammy Roscoe wasn't even her aunt.

And wasn't it just like Melva to do something really important like picking a daughter's name with less attention than you'd use to name a dog. Opal herself can't imagine saddling a child with a ditzy name like Tammy.

She supposes it could have been worse. When she went into labor, her mama could have been watching TV, one of those afternoon soaps she'd cut off a foot before admitting she's addicted to. Then later, when it came time to put a name on the birth certificate, she could have picked one from the show. One of those sappy, soap opera names. Opal could easily have been called Erica. Or Tiffany.

Opal was thirteen when she knew for sure she had to change her name.

“ARE YOU READY TO ORDER?”

Opal tucks the breakfast menu back behind the napkin holder. What is called for here is some serious sugar. “Can we see the dessert menu?”

The waitress looks at Opal and then Zack. “Aren't we a little early for dessert?” she says, pushing the comment through a totally phony smile that doesn't fool Opal for one minute.

“No,
we
are not.” Like she cares what this waitress thinks. At least Opal doesn't walk around with a paper cup stuck on her head.

She orders the biggest sundae the place offers, with whipped cream and pecans. Zack gets a strawberry milkshake. How bad can that be? It has milk and fruit.

“You know what?” Zack says to the waitress when she brings their order.

“What?”

“I cractured my arm.”

“You did,” the waitress says. “You cractured it.” She thaws slightly and smiles at Opal like,
Isn't that so cute
.

“Fractured, Zack,” Opal says. “You fractured your arm, sugah.” She peels the paper sleeve from the straw and sticks it in his milk shake.

“How did that happen?” Tammy asks.

“He fell,” Opal says. Why the hell is this woman with a Dixie cup on her head questioning her? Just like the emergency room doctor.
Routine questions,
he'd said. As if anyone could even think she'd hurt Zack.

“Mama?”

“What, sugah?”

“I feel funny.”

“Here. Drink some milkshake.” They never did have breakfast.

“I don't
feel
good.”

“Come on, bud,” she says. “Come sit by me.” She moves over, making room for him in her side of the booth. “Here. Try some of mine.” She scoops up some of the whipped cream.

“I don't feel good,” he says again. “I want to go home.”

He does look pale. Opal signals for the waitress and gets the check. Seven dollars, plus tax. Jesus. What does the cream come from? Platinum cows?

“Mama,” Zack whines.

“Okay, bud. We're going in a sec.” She roots though her purse for her wallet. Shit. Shit. Shit. The bill compartment is empty.

“I don't feel good.”

She
knows
she has a ten. She saw it yesterday when she paid Zack's preschool.

“Mama?”

It has to be there. Then she remembers. The box of eclairs, her impulsive donation to the fund for the young mother.

“Mama?”

“Just a minute, Zack.”

She ferrets for change in the bottom of her bag, coming up with two quarters and a dime. She digs through gum wrappers, waddedup tissues, a hair brush, lipstick, a roll of breath mints, finds another dime.

“Is there a problem?” Dixie cup stands over the table.

This she doesn't need. “I'm a little short.”

The waitress waits, not smiling.

“You take credit?”

“No. Cash only. Or local checks. We'll take a check.”

Opal makes a pretense of looking for her checkbook, although she can see it plain as day sitting back on the dresser in her bedroom.

“Wait here,” Dixie Cup says, like Opal is going to take off. “I'll get the manager.”

Immediately Opal can see he isn't going to be any better. He leaps right in before Opal can get a word in edgewise. “There a problem here?”

She knows how Melva would handle this. Her mama would fix her sweetest smile on the man and charm him into footing the bill. She has seen Melva do her act a kazillion times, but this is one behavior gene that missed her DNA. “I'm a little short,” she explains. “I was certain I had a ten.”

“Mama?” Zack pulls on her arm.

“Just a minute, sugah.”

“You can't pay?” He says this like,
You've murdered your husband?

Jesus. They're talking seven dollars here. Not exactly the national debt. “I can. I just don't have the cash with me. I live here. Over on Chestnut. Next to Rose and Ned Nelson.” Opal has noticed that people get real sympathetic when Rose's name is mentioned, but if he's heard of her neighbor, the manager doesn't betray it.

“How short are you?

“Seven dollars.”

“Mama?”

“Seven dollars?” He says it like it's seven hundred.

“Yes.” Fuck. Like what? She's trying to stiff them? “I'll bring it back later.” She tries a smile that strains every muscle in her face. “Promise.”

The man looks like he's debating whether or not to call the police.

“Hi, Opal.”

There—bigger than life—is Ty Miller. All duded up in tight jeans, suede jacket, and cowboy boots.

“Need help?” he asks.

“No,” she says. This is one bad day going directly downhill to worse.

“This woman can't pay her bill,” the manager says, like it's now public business.

“Well, shoot,” Ty says. “No problem. Here. It's taken care of.” He drops a ten dollar bill on the table.

“Please,” Opal protests, but before she can say another word, Zack pushes out of the booth and vomits all over Ty's high-heeled boots.

Later Opal will play the whole day over and over. Zack's accident. The doctor's suspicions. Her lie about how he got hurt. The trip to the Creamery. No money for the check. Zack puking on Ty Miller. Each episode part of a larger, inevitable path that leads straight to a heart crushed flat.