What's Left of Her (5 page)

It’s taken Evie a bit to get used to the friendliness of Corville. It seemed too much for her at first, especially the busybodies like the Gimble sisters who parade up and down Main Street digging for snippets of gossip about any newcomer. Everybody wanted to know about Evie Arbogast, where she’d come from, not just the town, but the house, apartment? Who were her parents, how had she landed in Corville? The last was just polite inquiry, because the whole town knew the story of how Mabel and Burt Burnes took in the young girl whose mother died at Corville General Hospital. What they really wanted to know was the history of Evie Arbogast. Where
was
her father, what had he done for a living? Was he a factory worker, union or not? Was he a big city executive, maybe at a bank, or Rothford’s Department Store? And the mother, what about her? Why had she only had one child? Had there been miscarriages or was it by choice? The answers were important, necessary. If Evie’s mother had suffered the loss of a child in her womb, all the women in Corville who knew that pain would be instant sympathizers. But, if the single child was by choice, those same women who lost their own babies might look on Evie with bitterness, anger even, convincing themselves that her mother’s choice was wrong and selfish; therefore, the mother was wrong and selfish and by attrition, Evie would be the same. And now Evie was in their town and would spread that selfishness to the community. Poor Rupe. Poor, poor Rupe.

But Evie never told them much; her father died when she was very young, hadn’t she said five?—and her mother had gone to work in the basement of Rothford’s Department store, sewing men’s suits, girls’ dresses, and women’s skirts and gowns from 7 to 4, five days a week. No aunts, no uncles, no siblings, and no house.

The town swarmed around Evie when they heard the news. How tragic to be all alone in the world with nothing and no one. Corville would be Evie’s town, her family, too. And when young Rupe started escorting Evie around town in his brand new Ford Ranger, they all knew their daughters had lost their chance, but still, they drew the girl in, welcomed her. She had nowhere to go, no one waiting for her, no home, nothing. They would give her a home, a place to belong, a family. And they have.

Rupe appreciates it, says the world is full of people who don’t want to know your name or what you do for a living, other than to fit you in an income slot for telemarketing. Not Corville. These people care.

Quinn will go away to school. Rupe knows that, knows too that chances are good the boy won’t come back, at least not until he learns for himself that every place doesn’t welcome strangers, hold out a hand and offer them a cup of coffee. Every place isn’t Corville.

Evie knows that.

Evie.
Rupe turns down the street to his home and thinks of the necklace he’s given her. She seems to like it, the initials and all, and the heart. He’s done good. He lets out a long sigh. He never meant to slap her, still doesn’t know how it happened. Maybe that’s how people commit crimes of insanity; it’s not really them, some force takes over and does the deed, leaving the perpetrator with the remorse and the sentence. He’d rather cut off his hand than hurt her again. It will never happen a second time, he’s promised her, promised himself.

She’s almost back to normal, just a little quiet yet, but she’ll come around. Neither of them has mentioned that day since, and at first Rupe is relieved, but later, he almost wishes she’d throw it up at him, accuse him of being a monster, a terrible bastard, anything but the silence. The quiet is its own tormentor, sentencing him to misery filled with dead space. He’s tried to bring it up a few times, painful as it is for him, but she just shrugs and tells him it’s over. But it isn’t, and he doesn’t need a degree in psychology to know this.

It doesn’t matter that he knows men who beat their wives when they have one too many, or when the wife mouths off, or maybe overcooks the steak. He struck Evie, something he never thought he’d do. And all he wants now is for things to be the way they were before.

He pulls the truck in the driveway, heaves a sigh, and steps out.

Quinn is in the living room, bare feet propped on the coffee table, head bent low, fingers clutching a pencil as his hand moves over a large drawing pad. That damn pad never leaves his side, probably goes in the john with him, too. The boy has his mother’s talent for the art because Rupe’s lucky to draw a stick figure.

“Hey, Quinn.”

“Hi, Dad.” The boy looks up from a shaggy mess of hair, flashes a smile, then turns back to his drawing.

“Where’s your mother?”

He shrugs. “Out back, I guess.”

Rupe turns to leave. “Take your feet off the coffee table before she sees you.” He heads to the kitchen, pulls a beer from the fridge and flips the tab. Maybe next spring he’ll talk to Evie about redoing the kitchen, getting new linoleum, a different countertop, maybe even a strip of recessed lights. Hell, the cabinets need painting, too. Evie’s been talking about getting rid of the avocado stove and fridge, replacing them with white or tan and slapping a coat of yellow on the cabinets. Rupe takes a long drink. If that’s what makes her happy, fine.

He stands at the screen door to the backyard, his gaze roaming until he spots her sitting against the big oak. Her legs are crossed in front of her, shoulders pressed into the bark. The wind lifts the ends of her hair, gently blowing them about her neck and throat. He can’t see the heart necklace and hopes she has it on. She told him she never takes it off and for some crazy, needful reason, he prays it is the truth, prays she hasn’t made that up to appease him. There is no sketch pad or book near her, which is odd, since she usually has one or the other in her hand when she is alone. Her eyes are closed and for a half-second Rupe thinks she might be sleeping, but then she moves her hand and flicks a piece of hair from her face. Her skin is so incredibly soft. He has an instant desire to turn her face, touch her, force her from wherever she goes when her eyes are closed, and claim her as his own. She is a Burnes. She is his.

“Evie.” Her name floats in the breeze, swirls and settles, but she doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t acknowledge his voice. “Evie,” he calls again, his hand on the screen door handle. She doesn’t turn or move her head. Rupe lets his hand fall from the door handle and moves away, downing the rest of his beer. She is still a Burnes. She is still his wife.

***

Brenda Coccani is still Evie’s best friend, even though they don’t meet at Hazel’s Diner anymore, not since Brenda wrote a letter to the
Corville Press
accusing people in high powers of using their positions to take advantage of others, especially minors. She might as well have spelled out Reverend Thurston’s name because everybody knows it was meant for him. If only she had left it anonymous, maybe there’d have been enough doubt to erase her from suspicion. But Brenda signed her name, first and last.

The town’s gotten mean since the incident with Reverend Thurston and Suzie Singleton. They blame Brenda for stirring up trouble, spreading rumors about him and his “perverted appetites”. People want Brenda gone, their fervor intensifying in the name of the Lord and Christian justice. It is this belief that helps them rationalize threats to Brenda’s boss at Furmano’s.
Put her on probation. Fire her. Show her she can’t blaspheme a man of the cloth.
After Janice at Nails ’R’ Us turns her away from her weekly nail appointment, and Loreen runs out of the Mary Kay foundation Brenda’s been using for ten years and “doesn’t know when she’ll be getting more,” the reality of the town’s desire to see Brenda gone settles in, congeals, and it is now Brenda against all of them, except Evie.

It isn’t right what they are doing, and Evie tries to talk to Rupe about it but he says it is out of his hands; the woman committed a sacrilege against a religious man and the whole town knows what she said, and worse, she refuses to apologize. He tells her there’s even been talk that Brenda went to see the girl, tried to persuade her to demand a DNA test to prove Reverend Thurston was the baby’s father, but Harry Singleton kicked Brenda out of the house.

Rupe doesn’t dare order Evie to stop seeing Brenda, not after what’s happened between them, though he’s made enough insinuations to let his preference known. But she ignores him. Brenda is her best friend and she isn’t going to abandon her.

But she has to be careful. So, Evie visits her in the cramped, two-bedroom brick house surrounded by giant oaks that she shares with her mother. Brenda has grown up in this house, slept in the same bed for thirty-six years, still has the same pink rose wallpaper, though it’s curling and yellowed. Evie usually walks to Brenda’s, a good two-mile trek that she claims clears her head and exercises her bones. They both know it has more to do with not leaving her car in front of Brenda’s than it does health improvement.

She hurries along the sidewalk, taking back streets and cutting across lawns to get to the brick house on Oliver Street. When she reaches it, she lifts the latch on the chain link fence and lets herself into the backyard, careful that Brenda’s Sheltie doesn’t run for the opening. But Stella isn’t in the yard.

Evie knocks on the screen door. “Brenda?” Nothing. She lets herself in, calls louder, “Brenda?”

The whimpering comes from upstairs and Evie runs toward the sound. Something horrible has happened, something filled with a pain and grief too deep for words. “Brenda!” When she reaches Brenda’s bedroom, her best friend is crumpled in a rocking chair in the corner, clutching Stella to her chest. “Brenda, what is it?” Evie inches into the room. “What’s wrong?”

Tears. So many of them, streaming down Brenda’s face, into her nose, her half-opened mouth, along her chin. “They killed her.” She collapses against Stella’s fluffy neck, burying her face in the animal’s soft fur.

It is then that Evie notices the slackness of the dog; the head resting on Brenda’s lap, short legs dangling beside her, motionless, eyes, fixed and open. Stella is dead.

“Oh, Brenda, I’m so sorry.” Evie pulls her friend to her, tries to wrap her arms around the other woman’s shoulders.

“Why, Evie? She was innocent. She never hurt anybody.” Brenda bends her head, pulls Stella’s limp body closer. “No-good bastards poisoned her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hell, yeah, I’m sure. They left a calling card, a bottle of D-Con right by her dish.”

“Maybe it was an accident?”

“Don’t be so damn gullible.” Brenda sniffs and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her T-shirt. “They did it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that damn holy man wasn’t the one who poured the poison.”

The words pound into Evie’s brain, fragmenting into broken pieces of understanding and still, she fights it. “Do you really believe that?”

“What do you think it was? An exterminator who thought she was a big rat? Someone came into my yard, thought they were giving her a treat, and it turned out to be D-Con instead?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get the hell out of this place.” She strokes Stella, her face, neck, back, stomach. “I’ve had it. They want me gone, fine. I’m gone.”

“Where?”

Brenda shrugs. “Who the hell cares? I just want to get away, start over.” Her long nails trace Stella’s paw. “I heard Reno was looking for dancers.” She pauses, looks at Evie. “You think I could dance?”

“Yes, of course, you can dance.”

“Yeah, I know.” The stroking starts again. “She was my baby, Evie.”

“I know.”

“Les didn’t even call me back. He said he would, but he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Screw him. Screw ’em all. Come with me, even just for a few weeks. Tell ’em all to go to hell and we’ll head to Reno.”

The answer falls out of Evie’s mouth before her brain can register the question. “I can’t, Brenda. You know I can’t.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Chapter 7

Brenda buries Stella in a small pine box in the south corner of her backyard next to a clump of gladioluses. She continues to cashier at Furmano’s every day, drives home in her Monte Carlo every night, and never mentions a word of her dog’s death to anyone else…or of going to Reno to dance. Les is coming around again, sneaking in through the back door most nights and out before morning.

Evie’s life changes more than Brenda’s after Stella dies, not from the outside, because that looks the same. She drives to Furmano’s three times a week, once for a big shopping and the others for quick pick-ups, washes clothes, cooks, irons, works in the yard, gives painting lessons, sneaks into the attic every night and paints with oils or writes in her notebook. The writing escalates to a frenzy; thoughts, desires, will, pour out on the pages, forcing her to acknowledge their presence like long-lost ghosts. She is splitting away, fragmenting from the inside out, one part the staunch Christian wife and mother of one of Corville’s most respected families, and the other, a pulsing, wild woman with a need to run, far, fast, dipping her body into every experience she’s shunned, every desire she’s ignored for so many years, and at the heart of it all is the painting, the
glorious
painting.

If Rupe even had a glimmer of what goes through her mind, what transforms itself into the notebooks tucked away in the attic, he would never be able to understand it, much less deal with it. He wants the woman he married twenty years ago, same brain, same ideas, same everything.

But Evie isn’t that woman anymore, hasn’t been for a long time, years maybe. And it’s taken months of frantic scribbling in the middle of the night to leak out of her, and the slap to wake her up, and finally, poor Stella’s death and the sad realization that her best friend will never leave Corville or Les Burnes, even though both treat her with disregard.

Evie’s life stops and restarts on a simple day that begins like most others. She washes a load of Rupe’s work clothes and hangs them on the line to dry, cleans out the pantry, bakes an angel food cake, and peels potatoes for dinner. At 1:00
P.M
., she drives to Furmano’s as she does every week with a grocery list and a hundred-dollar bill folded neatly in her wallet. She doesn’t notice the bruises on the peaches she places in the cart or the over-ripe smell of the cantaloupe she selects. She walks from aisle to aisle choosing items from the list, tossing them in the cart, moving on, oblivious to brand or amount, oblivious to everything but the rote machinations of her body, performing tasks for a mind that has temporarily shut down.