Going to Bend (16 page)

Schiff sat more easily, even athletically, behind the wheel, one arm resting on the door, the other riding the top of the steering wheel. Inside his beard he was smiling. It had been twenty minutes since he’d picked Petie up at her car on a back street in Sawyer, and she was still nervous as a cat. To guard herself any more tightly she’d have to be wearing a padlock.

Schiff had no idea what Petie was going to do, what either one of them would do. When he first turned off the highway onto the logging roads he half expected her to jump out of the truck and run away. But Petie had just stared out the window. She smelled faintly of soup—bean and sausage, Schiff guessed. She always smelled of some kind of soup or bread. It was better than any perfume. He had always loved the smell of food on a woman. He wished she’d say something, though. He didn’t enjoy silence, although he could use it effectively enough when he put his mind to it. He was easier with talk, though, being a talker himself.

To see if he could shake her up, he steered the truck through a few
unnecessary potholes and grinned. Petie shot him a look that said she knew what he was up to. Eddie always said she was real smart. Was she? Smarter than Schiff? He’d gone out with a smart girl once after he left the carnival; a college girl, rich girl, she’d worn a little string of pearls that were worth a couple of months of Schiff’s fleabag rent if he’d stolen them, which he prided himself on not doing, broke as he was. Her father had run a bank. The father had hated him. Schiff was screwing the girl every chance he got, often in her little pink bedroom just down the hall from the family room where the father read the newspaper, so who could blame the guy? Certainly not Schiff, who had sympathized completely and tried to stay out of his way. Not that Schiff had been the girl’s first, but the father wouldn’t know that, and anyway the others had undoubtedly been pretty boys, college boys the father wouldn’t have been afraid of. Even then Schiff had understood that he was scary; now he looked back at the pictures from those years—the squirrelly eyes, the dazzling fuck-you, walk-in-front-of-trains smile—and marveled that he had not even once been shot by one of the fathers, boyfriends, brothers. Not that there hadn’t been some close calls. At any rate, the girl had thought Schiff was romantic because he had shrapnel buried like a hundred peppercorns under the skin of his shoulders, and because he’d been in a lot of trouble in the last couple of years. The girl had liked to brush his hair—he had had more of it back then, brown and glossy as a girl’s, and he’d grown it long—and she gave him money sometimes; twice she bought him books he pretended to read. Once she took him to a fancy restaurant and he tried very hard not to embarrass her. She had been nice and gentle and earnest, and she’d been pretty good in the sack, too, but she’d started closing in on him just the same, and then she’d begun crying a lot. Surely something had happened at the end, but Schiff had no recollection of what.

Sitting on the seat beside him, Petie still wasn’t talking, and it was starting to annoy him. It wasn’t like he’d forced her to meet him, although there’d been that tiny financial incentive; he had been sure she’d come for the company. When he pictured the two of them together—something
he’d been doing lately—she didn’t look like this little sparrow, all puffed up against bad weather. In his imagination they were in bed together, but, oddly, not during sex. Instead they were cuddled together among big white pillows and crisp white sheets, Petie’s head on his bare shoulder, that black hair spread out and glossy. Carla hated to cuddle. Schiff had too, when he was young, had actually taken pride in it: here was a man who couldn’t be held, who was nothing but a sweet strong wind blowing through. Well, he’d been younger then, he hadn’t needed the shelter; or maybe he just hadn’t minded the elements as much.

He eased the truck over the smoothest parts of the road, steering carefully. “Eddie said you were laid off,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“So what will you do?”

Petie shrugged, not looking at him. He could just make out the hard little edge of her shoulder through her denim jacket. “I don’t know. I can keep doing the bread, if I want.”

“What’s it pay?”

“Couple of bucks a loaf for twelve loaves. Not enough.”

“Jesus. I’ll say.”

“It’s probably more than she can afford, though.”

“Yeah, right. Two hotshots cash out everything and move up from L.A.? They’re both younger than I am, plus the guy doesn’t seem to work at all. C’mon. There’s a lot of bucks there. They just want you to think they’re broke so you’ll work real cheap.”

Petie shrugged noncommittally and squinted through the windshield as they drove into a little squall of rain. “I’ll probably go back to the Sea View,” she said.

“You think they’d take you back?”

“Yeah. Business is lousy but they’re not real happy with Rhonda. Marge’s been talking about letting her go and filling in herself, but they want to go down to Tempe and see their grandkids for Christmas.”

“Didn’t they get new beds in a few months ago?” Schiff cocked a suggestive eyebrow, but Petie was focused on something else.

“Listen,” she said. “How solid is Eddie with you?”

Schiff frowned. He didn’t joke about business. “He’s solid if he don’t screw up. He’s a good driver, and my customers like him.”

“Screw up like how?”

“I don’t know. Drive the truck into a ditch, deliver the wrong orders, forget to come to work. Steal. Stupid stuff.”

“He wouldn’t do those things.”

“Nah,” Schiff agreed, although privately he wasn’t so sure. How many jobs had Eddie Coolbaugh had just since Schiff came to town seven years ago? The guy was nice but he was a loser just the same, the purest one Schiff had met in a long time.

“So, good,” Petie said. Suddenly she looked better. Seeing her brighten, Schiff pulled the truck off the road into a recent clear-cut, nothing for miles around but stumps and rubble. The ground bogged slightly under the tires, but it would hold, and if it didn’t he could always winch himself out. He loved his truck. In it, he was capable of greatness.

“So, let’s get to it,” he said. He switched off the engine and settled himself against the door, his arm reaching her way across the seat back. Petie narrowed her eyes at him; inside her jacket pockets he could see her hands ball up. She was plenty capable of decking him. God, he loved this; it reminded him of high school. He smiled at her good-naturedly, let a few beats go by. “Lunch.” He gestured towards her bag on the floor.

Petie colored, crossed her legs tightly from ankle to thigh and pulled up a paper bag, setting it between them. There was plenty of room; the seat was wide as a bed, unyielding as a pew. Deftly she spread out between them five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, two Hostess Ding Dongs, two boxes of apple-raspberry juice. The sandwiches were tiny, hardly larger than cigarette packs, and were made on anadama bread Petie had baked for Souperior’s that morning.

“Has Carla ever worked except at the Anchor?” Petie said, leaning lightly on the name, divvying up the sandwiches: one for her, four for Schiff. A Ding Dong and juice box apiece.

Schiff eyed the little sandwiches skeptically. He was going to go back
to work hungry, he could tell. “Nah. And the Anchor’s just for beer money. I’ve told her she doesn’t have to work.”

“She and Rose sure never got along too well.”

“Carla don’t get along too well with anyone, especially women. She’s mean.”

“She’s okay.”

Schiff shrugged, and popped half a sandwich in his mouth. He didn’t really want to be talking about Carla, it was depressing. He chewed, swallowed, looked out the window and suddenly said, “Sometimes I wonder how the hell it happened, you know? God, when I first met her she was sweet all the time, and she looked so good you could watch her walk away forever.” He felt Petie next to him, listening. “She still looks good walking away, only she keeps on coming back, you know what I mean?” He cracked a thin smile, polished off the other sandwich half, subsided pensively. Carla had been fun once, too. Back then, that high thin whinny of hers hadn’t sounded witchy when she laughed. And she had long beautiful fingers she liked to run lightly over his arms and chest as she got sleepy, which made him break out all over in ecstatic goose bumps. Hers were the fingers of a goddess, a queen, a courtesan. A trickster. She hadn’t touched him voluntarily, except for show, in years. God almighty, how was he supposed to have known she’d turn out to be so awful?

He pulled himself together. “Nah,” he said, “Carla, she’s okay. She just gets bored. I mean, that’s the thing about Carla, now that Randi’s growing up. When Randi was little they were always doing stuff together, sewing and baking and shit. Carla, she thought Randi would always be her best friend. But then Randi left her in the dust a couple years ago, and Carla didn’t see it coming. And it isn’t just that Randi’s got other stuff to do, you know, it’s that she dumped Carla because Carla’s old. You know how kids are. Carla can’t stand that. So now she goes to the Wayside and plays video poker all afternoon.”

“I heard she was down there a lot.”

“Yeah, well, she’s cutting back, though.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck difference it makes, really.”

“Well.”

They both sat quietly for a minute.

“So, I didn’t think we’d be out here talking about Carla,” Schiff said.

“What did you think we’d be talking about?”

“Sex?” Schiff said hopefully.

“Give me a break. So why do you stay, anyway?”

Schiff shrugged. “Maybe I’m just too old to get cleaned out again,” he said. He didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. He polished off the last of his sandwiches, popped an entire Ding Dong in his mouth, took a sip from his ridiculous juice box, wiped his beard neatly with his fingertips. “So how’s Christie doing?” he said. “He settled in?”

“He’s fixing up Rose’s car. He told her he’s going to have a surprise at Christmas. Maybe he’s going to turn it into some kind of low-rider. Wouldn’t that be something? He could do it. He’s a good body man.”

“He’s not the only one.” Schiff leered absently while he watched Petie put away the plastic produce bag in which she’d brought their sandwiches. She smoothed it flat with her quick little hands, then folded it in half, then in half again, then tucked it inside her purse. Schiff wouldn’t let Carla reuse anything, not even Ziploc bags. His mother, slovenly in so many ways, had been obsessive about husbanding kitchen materials. He and Howard had had to wash out plastic wrap, save margarine tubs, reuse paper bags until they were soft as felt. Delia had cuffed their heads hard if they threw out any reusable piece of aluminum foil bigger than an index card. He still couldn’t stand the rotten feel of reused foil.

Frowning a little with concentration, Petie stowed the last bits of their trash in her paper bag and set it on the seat between them. She held out her hand and Schiff passed over his empty juice box obediently. He pictured her moving around her house that way, quick and commanding, absorbed in tasks, all her toughness evaporated into the safety of home. And now, for an instant, here, too. Schiff liked that.

“So what was the deal with your first wife?” Petie asked, settling back again on the seat, not quite as far away as she had been.

He considered the question. “Mary. She was mean, too, meaner than Carla by a mile, meanest woman I ever met. She was an Indian girl, Nez Perce, but small, even smaller than you, and beautiful, she looked just like a doll. She stabbed me one time for coming home from work late. That was down in Klamath Falls, when I was working for a mill. They call a union meeting, I stay, and bam! I come home and she stabs me in the arm with a meat fork. Said she knew it wasn’t a union meeting, said I’d been out with some girl from the A&W down there. I told her if I was going to step out on her, for Christ sake, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to stop for a quickie on my way home from work. I told her if I ever decided to fool around, she’d never know about it.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Fool around on her.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,
she
did,” Schiff said, looking out the window. “I get all these nice letters from her in Vietnam because she figures what the hell, I’m probably going to die over there anyway. Then I get home and find out she’s got a
kid
. She’s been humping my best buddy my whole last tour. Says it wasn’t her fault, because I’d been away so long and didn’t come home on leave. It’s
my
fault.” Schiff flipped the windshield wipers on, switched them off. “So, you know, some homecoming. My first night back I drove my car through the front window of my buddy’s gas station. Broke one of my kneecaps in four pieces, dislocated the other one. He drove me to the hospital. It was good to see him.”

“You’re kidding.”

Schiff cracked his window open. Petie was turned to him, her eyes bright and sharp. He ran his fingers absently through his beard. When was the last time someone had listened to him? “I ended up going back with her for a while—a year and a half. The kid turned out to be great. Her name was Angela, except everyone called her Angel. She looked like one
of those kids in the paintings with the big eyes. We were buds, I took her everywhere. I’d put her way up on my shoulders and she’d hold on to my hair with both hands, never said a word, eyes as big as baseballs. The day I left she just stood there in the window watching me. I still dream about that sometimes. Neither of us had told her anything, but kids, they know what’s going on. I could tell Mary was trying to make her come away from the window, but Angel, she just stood there. I left a thousand bucks in a savings account for her but Mary probably spent it all on herself the first month. I heard Mary married some rancher out in eastern Oregon after a while. Couple of years ago I thought about looking for the girl, but Carla didn’t like it. Hell, she’s probably already married by now with her own kid.”

“I guess she hasn’t tried to find you.”

“Nah.”

“So why didn’t you come back when you got leave over there?”