I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (20 page)

She winked and pulled her sweatshirt down around her hips, a mannerism she had picked up at the nursing home, sure to turn on the one non-resident male.

• • •

Jean Harmeyer looked fashionable and exotic next to the functional go-the-distance chairs in Hope House's party room and Tig's nursing-home-chic sweatsuit. “I can't believe we have to meet in your mother's nursing home,” she said, clearly aggravated.

Tig marveled at Jean's smooth skin, slick hair, and fitted clothing. Not a trace of wattle on Jean's chin. Not a trace of stress. “You have great skin, Jean.”

“What's wrong with you? What's wrong with your house?”

“It's being painted.”

“That's ridiculous.” Jean slapped her palm down on top of the large laminate table. “This has gotten out of control. You need to call your sister and tell her to get her ass home, then come back to work. And for God's sake, get a haircut and wear some actual clothes. What's with the sweatsuit? Unless this is a well-disguised spa and you're exercising every hour, there is no reason on earth to dress like that.”

“Is that what the lawyers sent you to say?”

“No, the lawyers say lawsuits are a way of life. Either this ridiculous charge will be dropped or we'll settle. This probably won't come to fruition.”

“Probably?”

“What difference does it make? Medical doctors are sued all the time. It doesn't make them bad people.”

“What kind of therapist simplifies a very complicated emotional problem into a sound bite? I'll answer that, Jean: a terrible one.”

“That man's death was not your doing. A suicide, by definition, is very personal. On top of that, his wife didn't give you any information and you didn't make any judgments. You didn't say prostitutes are wrong, give them up. You said . . . wait . . . I have it right here.” Jean rustled through her file and pulled out a transcript. “You said, ‘You're very upset.' She said, ‘He says I just don't understand.' You said, ‘What's to understand? You want him to stop. He should stop.'”

Tig felt her face redden with mortification. “I said, ‘What's to understand?' Oh, God. The attention must have gone to my head.” Disgusted, she mumbled to herself. “I can't believe I said that.”

“Why the hell not?” Jean answered impatiently. “You were responding to a woman saying she wanted her husband to stop paying to screw someone outside their marriage. There isn't a person in this solar system who would have answered differently.”

“He killed himself.”

“Listen, Tig, I'm going to say something here that I might regret later, but you are overestimating your influence on other peoples' lives. And so, quite frankly, are the alleged victims' parents. You were a voice on the phone. It was his wife who asked him to stop, and his suicide wasn't her fault, either. It was the fault of the man who put a ligature around his neck.”

Tig closed her eyes. She saw an imagined face, gray. A purple tongue. She saw an idealized woman, blond with a headband, holding the hand of a little girl in lace socks as they walked in on their husband and father slumped against a snowblower. A Honda. No, a Toro.

“No influence?” Tig felt a combination of misery, relief, and affront. “You and Newman would still be married if I hadn't reduced your marriage to a joke.”

“Dream on! No, Tig. My divorce was my decision. I acted alone. You just opened my eyes.”

“So if I'm so ineffectual, what's the radio show about?”

“It's about giving people a place to go, a bottom line in an entertaining way.” Jean pushed away from the table and pantomimed holding a phone to her ear. “Is it okay to bang a prostitute while I'm married? No. Can I slip my willie into my wife while she's sleeping? Not so much. Okay if I screw my nanny when my wife has a migraine? You're a douchebag if you do!” Jean stood and walked to the window. “You're telling people what they already know. You are helping empower them to stand up for themselves—
you
are not the power.”

“Not everyone knows that. I want to help people, not hurt them.”

“You think you're helping people here? You think you're helping your sister? All you're doing is allowing your sister to shirk her responsibilities. Meanwhile, you're getting in the way of your mother ever acclimating without her precious Tig by her side. Even Thatcher has lost her sheen.”

Tig looked away. “I'm doing my best.”

Jean halfheartedly kicked the wall and turned. “I'm sorry.” She cleared her throat and said, “I'm not a person with much finesse. I know that. Every last ounce of patience and kindness that's inside of me goes to my twins. The rest of the world gets my angst. You can thank Newman for that.”

An overhead speaker announced a chair aerobics class in the recreation room.

“The show's on hiatus until I . . . I mean, until
we
. . . figure this out. Have you listened to our station during your time slot?”

Tig shook her head.

“We've got some woman who answers pressing scrapbooking questions. It's called
Snip and Share with Sue LaPere
.”

Tig grimaced. “Not really.”

Jean held up her hand. “I swear it's true. I just have to know, when did scrapbooking become a verb?” She made a disgusted noise with her tongue. “We aren't going to replace you. You are the show. If you don't come back, well, I'll let these speak for themselves.” Jean reached into her oversized bag and dropped a large, bulky envelope onto the table.

“What are these?”

“Letters. They started coming in around the time of the last show.”

“Hate mail?”

“No, you little idiot. Letters of support and gratitude. Offers to help. Letters from people who called and people too timid to actually pick up the phone. You want influence? You want to help people? Then get yourself back into the studio, because right now, it's you who is being an asscrack. You are most certainly not doing your best.”

When Jean was gone, Tig scuffed back to her room, the pack of unopened letters under her arm. Her mother and Clementine slept together in a lopsided yin and yang symbol. She dropped the letters on her bed and the baby stirred, woke, and stared at her aunt. Tig noted the similarities between grandmother and granddaughter: barrel belly, wispy white hair, sky-blue eyes. She saw her sister's chin.

“Hey there, little chicken,” she whispered. “How's my girl? I don't get to see much of you, do I?”

Thatcher wagged her way over and Tig scratched under her chin. “You, either, big girl. Are you ready to go home?” Thatcher dropped her ears. “Me neither.”

Clementine gurgled and sucked her fist. Her clear-eyed gaze made Tig's throat ache and she swallowed, trying to hold back tears. “Your mommy is coming back, sweetie. Don't you worry about that. Your mommy will be back. And when she comes, we're going to punch her hard. Yes, we are.”

A nursing assistant passing by the room stuck her head inside.

“She looks just like you,” she said and smiled warmly.

Tig tried a smile, but her lips trembled and she returned her gaze to Clementine. She traced her finger from Clementine's forehead to the tip of her nose, finishing at her tiny, tented lip. “The big question in my mind is not if your mom is coming back. It's if Pete is, and if I'll get a chance at having someone like you.”

The best thing about Hope House was the shower. There was none of that low-flow showerhead nonsense or a limit to how long a person could camp out. There was always a plastic seat nearby when standing and scrubbing got just too much to handle, and the hand-held nozzle was amazing for several reasons. Tig thought of Pete, of his strong hands, his full lips, and lowered the showerhead down her body.

“Isn't this your mom's shower?”

Tig gave a shout of surprise and dropped the nozzle. The water pressure kicked the showerhead around, sending a spray of water around the room.

Water hit Erin Ann directly in the face and she hollered, “Hey, you got me wet!”

Trying to simultaneously retrieve the bucking bronco of a showerhead and cover her breasts, Tig said, “Erin Ann. Shut the curtain. What are you doing in here?”

The girl wiped her face and said, “I wanted to ask you a question.”

Tig grabbed a towel. “Can it wait until I get dressed?”

“Why? We're all girls. Even Thatcher is a girl.”

“That's true, but some people don't like to have important conversations when they don't have any clothes on.”

“My mom didn't care. She said that after you have a baby, you just don't care about that stuff anymore.”

Tig turned off the water and wrapped herself with a towel. “I guess that's the difference. I haven't had a baby yet.”

“You have Clementine.”

“I don't have her, really. I'm her aunt, not her mother.”

Erin Ann pulled the bottom of her pigtails apart to tighten them against her head and said, “Yeah, I don't get that.”

“Her mother is coming back soon.”

“My mom said she didn't want to miss a minute with me. But then she had to.”

Tig blotted her hair dry and sat on the shower chair. She looked the little girl in the eye. “What was she like?”

“She was really pretty, before she got sick. She was a really good singer.”

“Did she sing to you?”

“Yeah, her favorite song was ‘Waltzing Matilda.' It had a lot of funny words in it. We looked them up.”

“Does your dad know the words, too?”

“He can't remember them, so he makes up his own.” Erin nosed the toe of her shoe into a puddle from the shower and drew a letter
C
. “It's not the same, but it's funny. How come you don't have your own baby? I asked my dad if you were old enough, and he said you were.”

Tig smiled. “Did he? Hand me that robe, will you, please? I'm getting cold.” Tig wrapped the dry material around her and modestly plucked the towel away from her body after she was completely covered with the robe.

“I know how people do it.”

Tig dried her hair with a towel. “What, honey?”

“You know.
It
,” Erin said with knowing emphasis. “Would you like me to tell you?”

Tig said, “Uh, no. I'm pretty clear on the mechanics of it.”

“Tracy Smiley told us at recess and then got in big trouble for it. It's gross.”

Tig nodded. “It totally is gross.”

“People must really want kids.”

Tig wrinkled her nose and said, “I know, right?”

“We're here for dinner tonight. We ordered a guest tray for me and my dad.”

Tig brightened, “Oh, so I should dress up for dinner, since it's a special night.”

“Um, I don't think you have to be fancy. You could wear what I'm wearing.”

“I don't have a rock star T-shirt or shorts with diamonds on them. Can I just wear jeans?”

Erin considered this and angled her head as if to assess Tig's potential. “I guess.” She turned to leave.

“Wait. What did you want to ask me before?”

Erin looked over her shoulder. “If you could be friends with my dad. He's super lonely, I can tell. I don't want you to be my mom or anything, just a friend to my dad. You're nice to people and good at taking care of them. My dad kind of needs that.”

Tig put her hand on Erin's shoulder. “You're the kid, you know. You don't have to take care of your dad. That's not your job.”

With a steady gaze and not a moment of thought, Erin said, “You're the kid, too, but you're doing it.”

• • •

After dinner, Fern Fobes wiped her mouth with a napkin from a stash swiped daily from the dining room. Alec said, “Mom, you already have enough napkins and tissues to start a hot-dog stand. Why did you take more?”

“Oh, stop bothering me.” Fern rolled her eyes at Tig. “Erin and I are going for a ride around the grounds in one of the golf carts later. I already talked to Jerry, that handsome nurses' aide, about it.” Winking, she said, “We have a date.”

“He's too old for you, Mom.”

“I know. I'm branching out. Listen, Hallie and Clem are sleeping. Why don't you two go for a walk or something? I'll sit here. Make sure nobody hits the floor.”

Tig brushed her hair back from her face. “We're almost out of our frozen milk stash. I have to go back to my place and pick some up. Get my mail.”

“Go with her, Alec. You can help carry things. I don't want you sitting around flirting with Mrs. Templeton in 34A.”

Tig looked at Alec. “We're not needed here, and it's only five-thirty—that's the nice thing about eating during the Early Bird Special. You have the rest of the night for bunion soaks and terrible television.”

Alec nodded. “Let's go.”

Without the nursing home residents, Erin Ann, and the constant interruptions of nursing staff comings and goings, there were highways of open air to fill between Alec and Tig. It was a quiet walk to the car.

“I know this isn't healthy, but it feels weird to be out of the nursing home and with my arms free.”

“You don't have to apologize for stuff around me, y'know. Ever since Jennifer died, I try not to judge what people do or what they need at any given moment. You're helping your family. That's good enough for me.”

“Thanks.” Tig drove out of the parking lot and stared straight ahead. “My boyfriend is mad at me about all of this. He wanted me to go with him on sabbatical.”

“Your boyfriend.” Alec said this like a statement and suddenly the car felt overpopulated with Tig, Alec, Jennifer, and the word ‘boyfriend' drifting between them.

“‘Boyfriend' is too strong a word. ‘Old boyfriend' would be more accurate. I haven't talked to him in, like, two months.”