Entering Normal (12 page)

CHAPTER 12

NED

NED BURROWS DEEP UNDER THE HOOD OF CHUCK Winski's Nova. Something is off with the timing, something he suspects Chuck tried fixing himself to save a trip to the garage. Nice enough guy, but Christ, he can squeeze a nickel until the buffalo farts.

“You fool around under here?”

“Not exactly.”

“Jesus, Chuck. You either did or you didn't.”

“Well, I didn't but . . .” The hesitation gives him away. “Well, my nephew, you know, Janice's boy, he took a look at it.”

It was always the nephew. People wanted to save themselves a buck or two, and then when it went sour, they laid it on the nephew. Hell, if nephews were responsible for all the cars screwed up by every cheapskate in Normal, there wouldn't be a kid in town who didn't wear a socket wrench in his back pocket.

“What'd he do?”

“Jeez, I don't know. Just looked at it. Maybe turned a screw or two.”

“Park it out back between the tow truck and the green Chrysler. I'll try and get to it this afternoon.”

Ned writes up the order sheet. In the service bay, Ty is whistling, working out some new tune, his mind more on music than transmissions, as usual. Ned has tried telling him to forget music and stick to cars. More money in it. Dependable money. He has even hinted there might be a bigger role for Ty at the station, has dropped hints about turning over the place to someone else once he moves to Florida. Ty isn't interested. He has bigger dreams, ideas that to Ned's way of thinking have as much chance of holding water as a rusted-out radiator.

At least he isn't a drinker. Most every mechanic Ned has ever known has a drinking problem. Except for not showing up every now and then, the kid isn't bad. Understands engines. And in spite of his history, he stays out of trouble. Ned doesn't regret giving him a chance—not for a minute. Out front, someone pulls up to the pumps.

It's an automatic habit to troubleshoot every car that drives up. Twenty feet away and blindfolded, he can diagnose a skip in an engine, the squeal of a loose belt. Now, even inside the shop, he picks up a tell-tale growling. Easy call, this one. Water pump on the way out.

He looks up and sees the gray Buick. It's his neighbor the fruitcake. The donut he grabbed earlier at Trudy's sits heavy beneath his ribs. He rubs a hand absently over his chest. He has to cut back on the grease.

As if operating on radar, Ty wheels his creeper out from beneath an Escort—leak somewhere in the exhaust—and crosses over to where Ned is standing. They watch Opal get out of the car, flashing legs naked up to there.

“Forget her,” Ned says. Everyone in town has heard how Ty bailed her out at the Creamery, how the kid vomited on his boots.

He could have saved his breath. Ty is already out the door. Ned reaches for the bottle of Tums beneath the counter, takes two.

Seeing Opal reminds him of Rose. Okay, she was only helping out when she went to the emergency room with the kid, but he doesn't like it. He doesn't think things can get worse with Rose, but it sure isn't healthy, her spending time with Opal Gates. He'd like to forbid it.

At the pumps out front, Ty is hanging all over the Buick. While the tank is filling, he washes the windshield, spending more time than the job requires. Jesus, why doesn't he just drool on the glass?

Ned tosses his grease rag on the counter and decides to break early for lunch. He goes to the john, takes a piss, scoops some Glo-Jo out of the jar, works most of the grease off his hands. When he comes out, damned if Ty isn't
still
hanging over the Buick. “I'm going over to Trudy's,” he shouts, making a point of ignoring the girl. The boy is in the backseat of the Buick. Cute little tyke. Ned has no grudge against him. He nods as he walks by.

The diner is near empty. He has beaten most of the lunch crowd.

“You're early,” Trudy says.

He takes his regular stool; she brings him a mug of high test.

Although she isn't much older than he is, Ned can't remember a time when Trudy hasn't been behind this counter. The place belonged to her parents, and when they died—it must be thirty years ago now— she took over. He wonders if she ever thinks about retiring, heading south. What keeps her going?

“BLT, toasted,” he says.

“Fries or slaw?”

He thinks about his persistent heartburn. What the hell. He orders the fries. He has the place to himself, and in spite of CNN on the tube, there is a peacefulness here that suits him. Through the opening in the wall above the counter, he watches Trudy work the grill. She moves with economy, the way good workers do. No wasted motion. She lays out a half dozen pieces of bacon, puts two slices of white in the toaster, spills a portion of fries into the basket, lowers it into the fat. Not for the first time, Ned wonders why she never remarried after Jim passed on. His eyes fall on her hips, broad, the way he likes a woman's hips. No skinny-Minnie type for him. Give him something you can hold on to. Briefly he allows himself to contemplate what Trudy would be like between the sheets. In high school she had a reputation. It daunted Ned then, and it does so now. To be honest, it also excites him. He averts his eyes to the overhead television, stares at the stock market report, which doesn't interest him in the least, then watches a clip of Quayle making another error. The man can't keep his foot out of his mouth.

The vice president fades away, and a close-up of a woman's face fills the screen. Ned recognizes her immediately. Everyone in the country knows her by now. The woman who killed her kids. For a solid week she turned up on every morning show, crying and pleading with the kidnapper for the return of her kids when all along she killed them herself. He can't understand how someone could lie like that, fooling everyone. When the segment ends, he's relieved. Just looking at her gives Ned the willies. A mother killing her own kids seems like the most unnatural thing in the world to him. There should be something worse than the gas chamber for people like that.

When the whole story came out on the evening news, Rose got up, switched off the set and left the room. He heard her crying in the bathroom. He didn't know whether to go in and say something or stay put. Living with Rose is like walking on eggs.

He swigs the coffee and thinks about her. He feels like she is getting farther and farther from him. For days, he has tried to come to understand her lie about the college writing class being canceled. Why couldn't she just tell him the truth? He's put up with a lot from her in the past couple of years. He's tried sympathy, tenderness, even anger. Nothing helps. She refuses to go to Ethel's for the family's Christmas gathering. She won't drive. The lie about the college feels like the last straw.

He woke up sometime after midnight last night and watched her sleeping. Even in sleep she seems different, distant. Looking at her in the dark, he found himself thinking, I don't know how much longer I can go on like this.

This thought has played in his mind all morning. Never once, in the past five years, during all the hard days and weeks and months since Todd's death had he ever thought of leaving Rose. Somehow we will get through this, he always told himself. Eventually things will get back to normal. Last night, it occurred to him that maybe time wasn't going to cure things. Maybe Rose would always be this way, stuck in her grief. Maybe they would never get back to the way things were. He lay awake, frozen, afraid of what he might say if at that moment she woke.

This morning, the memory hangs on like the remnant of a bad dream.

Trudy brings the sandwich and fries, lights a cigarette, refills his coffee without his asking, and pours one for herself. She slides onto the stool next to his.

“How's Rose?” she asks.

For a minute he considers asking her advice, getting a woman's point of view. Of course, he says anything to Trudy and by the end of lunch hour, half the town will hear about his problems. The only thing bigger than Trudy's heart is her mouth.

“Doing fine,” he says. “Just fine.”

When he returns to the garage, Ty is gone. The Escort is still in the service bay. This day is turning into one long disappointment. Ned feels a headache coming on. Everything is spinning out beyond the reach of his hands.

CHAPTER 13

OPAL

OPAL SWINGS INTO NELSON'S SERVICE STATION AND parks at the pumps. She has come directly from the bank, where she withdrew thirty dollars. Aunt May's money is just evaporating. It's already clear as crystal that the dolls aren't going to bring in enough to get them through the winter. She's hoping Maida Learned will hire her part-time at the toy store. At least until after the holidays.

She barely has time to switch off the ignition and get out of the car before Ty Miller comes out of the station, like he's been sitting there waiting for her arrival. He moves across the lot with the liquid gait of a long-legged, loose-hipped man. She plans to get some gas and give him the money for her bill at the Creamery. She's searching for the words to talk about his boots. Can you dry-clean boots? She doesn't have a clue. Best to stay off that whole subject. Course her mama would handle the entire matter in some clever way, but Opal is not her mama, a fact Melva never tires of pointing out. You got to think on your feet, Melva likes to instruct, but this is a skill Opal has no more mastered than the one on how to sweet-talk a man.

“Hello again,” he says.

“Hi,” she manages. A man walks like that, he's just got to know how to dance. Opal loves to dance. Billy hates it. Even when she insisted he take her to the prom, he refused to dance any of the fast ones and only two or three of the slow ones—if you could call what he did dancing. He'd sway from one foot to the other, pressing his pelvis into hers. Stand-up fucking, he called it. Not the least thing romantic about Billy.

Tyrone takes the nozzle from her. “Fill it up?”

“Ten dollars.”

Even sitting back in the car, her legs are all shaky. She feels about sixteen.

Tyrone ducks down and looks in at Zack. “How you doing, buddy? Got a bum arm there?”

Zack grins like they are old friends. “Actually,” he says, “it's cractured.”

“High test?” he asks Opal.

“Regular.”

He strolls back to the pump as if he has all the time in the world and starts filling the tank. She could just die when he catches her watching him in the side mirror and winks. Then damned if he doesn't come around and start cleaning the windshield, staring straight through with the darkest eyes—eyes nearly black, and so beautiful they make a person almost forget about the scar.

“Check the oil?”

“No,” she says. Even with the scar, he's good-looking—no getting around that. But good looks don't feed the hogs.

He's still working on the windshield, though it's so clean now you could let a baby eat off it. Next he cleans the wiper blades, swiping them dry with an orange rag. She looks at his hands—bold looking, long-fingered hands that are separated from her by no more than ten inches and a sheet of glass—and knows the confusion of wanting something and not wanting it, both in the same breath.

After he finishes with the wipers, Ty checks the oil anyway. When there's nothing left to do, he takes her money. With sense enough to feel the relief of a close call, Opal drives off.

She's halfway home before she realizes she has still neglected to pay back his ten bucks. Well, no way she's going back now.

THE PHONE IS RINGING OFF THE HOOK WHEN SHE GETS home. Three guesses who, and the first two don't count.

“Hello, Mama,” she says.

“Where have you been? I've been calling on and off for two days.”

Six states and four months away and she's still accountable to her mama. “Zack and I were out,” she says. “Errands.” She hopes Melva doesn't ask why Zack isn't in school. No way she's going to say one word about his broken arm. With her mama it's definitely a case of what she doesn't know won't hurt Opal.

“I mean Tuesday night.” Melva's voice is hard with suspicion. “Where were you Tuesday night?”

“Tuesday night?”

“That's right. About eleven?”

Fuck.

“I must have let the phone ring twenty times,” Melva says. “You're not keeping Zack out that late, are you?”

“No, Mama.”

“What were you doing?”

Opal stalls for time. Her mama has a nose for lies. “Well, I was here,” she says. “Maybe you dialed the wrong number.”

“I did
not
dial the wrong number. I've never in my life dialed a wrong number, and I'm not about to start now.”

“I was here, Mama,” she repeats. Melva may have suspicions, but stuck in New Zion there's no way she can dispute Opal's story. She rips open a bag of Cheetos and dumps them in a bowl, which she sets in front of Zack.

“What do you want, Mama?”

“What do I want? I want to know when we can expect to see you again.”

“I don't know.”

“Raylee,” Melva says in her bossy voice. “Raylee, I swore I wouldn't say anything, but this nonsense has gone on long enough. It's time you packed up and headed back here where you belong.”

“We've been over this before, Mama.”

“Not to my liking.”

“Oh, Mama.”

“The holidays are coming up,” Melva barrels on. “We want Zack here for the holidays. I just can't abide the thought of him all alone up there at Christmas.”

“He's not alone, Mama. He's with me.”

“Well, you know what I mean, Raylee. He should be with his kin, not strangers.”

Opal stares at the Chiquita sticker. South America is looking better all the time.

“If it's about money, Raylee, if you need the money, your daddy can send some.”

“How is Daddy?” Opal asks. “Can I talk to him?”

“He's not here. He and Billy went over to Raleigh.”

“To Raleigh?”

“Ed Bagley had a couple of season tickets he wasn't using.”

Her daddy and Billy at a ball game? Her daddy doesn't even
like
Billy. She pushes aside the cereal bowls to make space on the table for Zack to spill out a set of Magic Markers.

“Raylee? You hearing me?”

“Opal,” she says. “My name's Opal.”

“Girl, you can call yourself any fool name you want, but our patience is wearing thin. It's time you brought Zack back home.”

Before she can think of an answer, the doorbell chimes. “Listen, Mama,” she says. “I can't talk now. There's someone at the door.”

TY MILLER STANDS ON THE FRONT STEPS. BIG AS LIFE AND twice as exciting. “Here,” he says, handing her a box of brownies. Not even a hello, just like it's an everyday occurrence, her opening the door, him standing there.

Zack runs in from the kitchen. “Hi,” he says, not the least bit shy.

“Hey, scout,” Ty says.

Zack giggles. “I'm not scout. I'm Zack.”

“Well, Zack, this is for you.” Ty hands him a bag.

Zack reaches out his good arm, takes the bag. “Open it, Mama,” he says.

Opal pulls out a bunch of bananas, of all things. “Why'd you come here?” she asks, though it's plain as day to her why he's there, and she's not interested. Well, okay. That's a flat-out lie. She is attracted, no denying
that
, but she's not about to get
involved
, not about to
lose
herself. She has Zack to think of now.

“I got a cractured arm,” Zack says.

“That so?” Ty ignores Opal's question.

“Want to write on my cast? Can he, Mama? Can he write on it?”

Somehow, before she can muster up an answer, Ty Miller is standing in her front hall. Well, it'll take more than a box of pastries and a bunch of bananas for him to worm his way into her life. “I forgot to pay you at the garage,” she says. “I'll get your money.”

“No hurry,” he says, but she's already halfway to the kitchen. When she returns, he's writing on Zack's cast. He's drawn a line of musical notes with the black marker and is using the fine-tip yellow one to make a little harmonica. Zack is leaning against his knee with a smile so big Opal's heart could just split because she's so jealous.

When he finishes the last flourish, she holds out a ten. She readies herself for his refusal, gets set to tell him she doesn't take handouts from strangers. But he looks directly at her with those startling eyes and slips the bill in his jeans pocket, leaving her with a mouthful of argument and nowhere to spend it.

“Look, Mama,” Zack says. “Look what Ty put on my cast.”

“I see,” she says, civil as can be.

“What's that?” Zack asks, pointing to the tiny drawing.

“A harmonica,” Ty answers. “You ever see one?”

“Nope.”

“Want to?”

“Yes.”

“You wait right here.”

It doesn't take him but two minutes to return. Ignoring Opal, he kneels down on the floor by Zack and begins to play. With the first dozen notes—just a quick riff up the scale—Opal can hear the sure, sweet sound of someone good. He slides up and down the mouthpiece a couple of times then hands it to Zack. “Here. Give it a try.”

Before Opal can even collect herself enough to protest—she doesn't even want to
think
about where Ty Miller's mouth has been—Zack is blowing, creating wheezy, weak sounds.

“You do it,” he says, handing the harmonica back to Tyrone.

Ty cups his hands around the harmonica and starts. He hasn't gone half a bar into the song when Opal recognizes an old blues number she's heard half her life: “Train Whistle Blues.” In spite of herself, she closes her eyes. If she didn't know better, she could think she was back in New Zion with Mr. Moses sitting on the bench outside of Clark's hardware, nursing his Friday night hangover. She can picture him so clearly, elbows resting on his knees, hands cupped around his mouth, making that old mouth harp moan and cry and talk.

“Well, that was nice,” she says when he's finished, hearing in her voice the cool, extrapolite tone Melva uses whenever she doesn't like someone.

“Thanks.”

“Reminds me of someone back home.”

“Where's home?”

“North Carolina.”

“Never been there,” he says, “but I'm going someday. It's home to one of my idols.”

“Who's that? Jesse Helms?”

He laughs. “No. An old harmonica player. Brother Jones. The best.”

Zack pulls on his arm. “Show me how,” he says. “Show me how to do it.”

“Tell you what,” Ty says. “How'd you like one of your own?”

“Zack,” Opal says. “Take these in the kitchen.” She hands him the bananas. He starts to fuss. “Go on, sugah. Do as I say.”

“You better go,” she says as soon as Zack is out of sight.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I just don't like people making promises to my boy. Promises they can't deliver on.”

He looks her straight in the eyes. “I never say anything I can't deliver on, Opal.”

In spite of all her best intentions, in spite of her vow to give up sex, she feels the arrow of desire shoot directly from her throat to her belly.

“I'm not a liar,” he says. “Whatever else I am, I don't lie.” Reflexively his fingers trace the scar on his cheek. “A man should keep his word, whatever it costs him.”

Lord, is she heating up. If she even looks at him, she's sure he'll read it on her face.

“And you, Opal Gates? What do you believe in?”

“Look here,” she says. “I guess what I believe in is my business.” Just because he comes marching into her house with a box of brownies, a bunch of bananas, and a harmonica sweet enough to make a dead goat weep, that doesn't give him any claim on her.

Instead of being insulted, he laughs. “You like blues? I play weekends over in Springfield. Part of a blues band. Maybe you could come to hear us some night. You too,” he says to Zack, who has reappeared.

“Can we, Mama?” Zack asks. “Please.”

“We'll see,” Opal says, a phrase she's heard from Melva half her life and swore she'd never say to her son. “We'll see.”

“Guess I better quit while I'm ahead,” Ty says.

“What makes you think you're ahead?”

He laughs. “I'll call you with directions.”

After he leaves, Opal returns to the kitchen. And isn't the very first thing her eyes land on the Chiquita sticker. Well, fuck. Plain as udders on a cow. Of everything on earth that Tyrone Miller might have chosen to show up at her door with, he's picked a bunch of bananas. Right then and there, Opal knows she is in a heap of trouble.

“I'm getting a harmonica,” Zack says. “Ty's getting me one.”

“We'll see,” Opal says as she pours him some Coke. She gets him settled with a brownie and then digs out
1000 Names for Your New
Baby
. She flips to the T's.
“Tyrone,”
she reads.
“(Celtic) of uncertain
meaning. Dim., Ty.”

She slams the book shut. For sure, the last thing she needs in her life is uncertainty. She marches straight back to the kitchen and peels the sticker off the door with her thumbnail. Zack watches her with interest.

She rolls it between her fingers until it forms a little ball and then throws it in the trash.

The fact is some signs need erasing before they can do much damage.

The heat in her belly takes a little more concentration to make disappear.