What's Left of Her (7 page)

***

She wonders after how she made it out of the store. Did she walk, run? What the manager thinks when he finds her abandoned cart by the magazine aisle, piled high with beef and pork roasts, chicken, potatoes, toilet paper, fruits, and vegetables.

It takes twenty-eight miles before Evie realizes she is driving and another sixty-two before she runs out of gas. She eases the blue station wagon along the berm of the road and starts walking. She doesn’t bother to lock the doors.

The sun is high and hot as she trudges along the gravel in her scuffed loafers, mindless of everything but the need to stay in motion. Her white cotton shirt clings to her chest, spots of sweat soaking her underarms and neck. She doesn’t hear the truck behind her, its huge tires spewing gravel and dirt as it pulls off the road. The driver blasts the horn and Evie jumps, spins around, faces the shiny grill of a red semi. When the driver rolls down the passenger window, Evie is surprised to see a woman sitting behind the wheel. Her upper body is thick and stocky, her arms strong beneath the rolled up T-shirt.

“Need a ride?”

“Yes, yes I do.” Evie scrambles up onto the black vinyl seat, fumbles with the seatbelt, finally latches it and turns to the driver who is already pulling back onto the road. “Thank you, thank you very much.”

“Was that your station wagon a quarter mile back?”

“It was. I ran out of gas.”

Silence.

“I’m Peggy.”

“I’m Evi-Evelyn.”

“Nice to meet you, Evelyn.” The woman smiles then and she is almost pretty, her pale blue eyes shiny under thick lashes. “Where you headed?”

“I’m not sure.”

The woman’s tone is matter-of-fact when she says, “So, you running away from something or you running to something?”

“I’m… I don’t know.” The truth: she doesn’t know.

“Well, least ways, you’re honest.” The woman named Peggy slides her a glance. “No suitcase? Not even a change of shoes?”

Evie looks away. She’s taken nothing. She didn’t know she was leaving until a few seconds ago, still doesn’t know for sure. Nothing is for sure anymore except her need this afternoon to get away from Corville, from mundane, if only for an afternoon.

But then the woman says her name: “Evelyn.” Clean, simple, pure, and there it is, the answer, sitting wide and luminous in front of her.

She’s not going back. She’s Evelyn and Evelyn doesn’t belong in Corville bleaching out sinks and frying pork chops for a husband and two children. Evelyn belongs somewhere else. A tiny, horrible smile creeps over her face. Somewhere else. Mile after mile pulls her closer to her destination that she knows in her bones before it settles in her brain.

***

By the time they reach the Pennsylvania border, Evie knows quite a bit about Peggy Smolsterski. She married briefly at twenty but it didn’t last and she sold vacuum cleaners door to door for the next two years just to eke out a living. Then one day, a customer’s mother told her about a way her daughter found to see the country and get paid while doing it. That’s how Peggy got introduced to Carolina Rigs and three months later, she’s driving cross-country, visiting states like Texas, Oregon, and Maine. Five years later, she buys her own rig, and here she is, age thirty-seven, owner and operator of a brand new Kenilworth.

Evie doesn’t say much and Peggy doesn’t push her, just talks and every now and then gives Evie a chance to jump in, which she doesn’t. Peggy’s soft voice fills the cab, blocks out conscious thought, snuffs the germs of doubt and guilt before they can take hold. It’s good not to think, not yet anyway. All Evie wants right now is to breathe freedom into her lungs, feel the weightlessness of her own soul settling around her.

They stop at a blue diner along Interstate 90, fifty miles from Elkhart, Indiana. There are pickup trucks, one or two motorcycles, and two other rigs lined up in the back, a black shiny Kenilworth and a silver one with red pinstriping. “This place serves up the best fried chicken steak you ever tasted,” Peggy says, holding the door open for Evie.

The inside is dim and layered with cigarette smoke. “Johnny Angel” blares from the jukebox in the corner. Ten or so men fill the blue bar stools and booths. Aside from a gum-chewing, bleached-blonde waitress in a too-tight grayish uniform and white dangle-ball earrings, Peggy and Evie are the only women. Men turn, two and three at a time, their gazes bold, hungry, pinning Evie. She stands still, a rabbit caught in a trap. One of the men at the counter starts to rise.

“She’s with me.” Peggy’s usually soft voice is hard. She puts a hand on Evie’s shoulder and guides her to an empty booth while the man mutters something under his breath and falls back onto his stool. The others turn away, shaking their heads.

“Assholes,” Peggy mutters, sliding into her booth. “They think every woman wants a piece of them.” When Evie doesn’t respond, Peggy eyes her. “You know what that was about, don’t you?”

Evie shrugs. “They were trying to get our attention.”

Peggy laughs. “Yeah, they wanted our attention.” Her mouth flattens, her blue eyes turn serious. “Do you know why they left us alone?”

“We weren’t interested.”

“You think you’re talking to a bunch of boy scouts?” She leans her elbows on the table, moves closer. “They think we’re together.”

“We are together.”

“I mean together, as in a couple.” The light in Peggy’s eyes darkens.

“Lesbians?” The word stumbles out.

“Yeah, lesbians.” Silence, then, “What do you think of that, Evelyn?”

“That’s ridiculous.” Evie glances at the men on the stools, their broad backs hunched over their meals. She smiles then and turns to Peggy. “But if it keeps them away, let them think that. Let them think whatever they want.”

“That’s exactly what I say.” Peggy lifts her water glass, pushes a chunk of streaked blonde hair from her forehead and salutes. “Hell yeah.”

Chapter 9

The headlights flicker past them like a long, blinking caterpillar against the night. Perched in the passenger seat of the semi, Evie can see into passing cars: men and women, teenagers, children sleeping in car seats, or huddled together, their silhouettes illuminated by the truck’s headlights. She tries to guess about the people as they whiz by; are the man and woman in the front seat husband and wife, husband and lover, brother and sister? And the infant in the car seat, is it the product of a long-awaited birth? An unwanted pregnancy? A prayer answered? A band-aid for an ailing marriage? Is the baby a boy or a girl? Does it have its mother’s eyes and its father’s nose?

Does the mother ever think about getting in her car one day and driving out of the infant’s life, even though she loves the baby very much, loves the husband, and the dog, loves it all?

Evie turns from the window. Rupe will be tearing apart the state trying to find her. She pictures him, scrubbed and brown, his muscles tight under a green Burnes Construction T-shirt as he combs the parking lots of Furmano’s, St. Michael’s, even Corville General Hospital, looking for her station wagon. Maybe he’ll stop off at the rectory, talk to Father Finnegan. Will he try Brenda?
Will he actually do that?

Quinn will help Annalise with her homework. Math is always a struggle for her but he’ll be able to show her. What are they working on now? Positive numbers? Next week is plotting on the number line.

“Evelyn?”

Annalise. Small. Fragile. What is she doing now? And then,
What am I doing? What in God’s name am I doing?

“Evelyn?”

How many hours from home? Home. Where’s home?

“Evelyn!”

Evie jerks. “What?”

“You’re ten million miles from here.”

“Sorry.”

“You okay?”

“I guess. Just…I don’t know.”

“You want to talk about it? I’m a pretty good listener.”

Evie faces Peggy, props herself against the passenger door. The blackness of the cab reminds her of a confessional. The words fall out, tumble together in her need to speak them before they vanish in a jumble of confusion. “I left the house today to go to the grocery store, just like I’ve been doing every week for the past twenty years. It’s what I do, you know: big shopping on Fridays, little pick-ups on Mondays and Wednesdays. Rupe says we save more money that way. Today was exactly the same until I got to the last section. That’s where the magazines are.” She works her hands over her face, settles her fingers on the rumpled edge of her shirt and starts picking at it. “I always stop at the magazine section, just to look, not buy, but today I saw a
Travel
magazine with a picture of Niagara Falls on the front. And that was it. I left the cart, walked out of the store, and started driving. I drove until I ran out of gas and that’s when I started walking. Then you found me.”

“What’s the big deal with Niagara Falls?”

“My mother.” Her voice crumbles. All the dreams they shared. Broken, sad, empty dreams.
You’ll be a wonderful painter, Evelyn. A famous painter.
“I was eighteen. We were on our way to visit Niagara on the Lake when she died. Appendicitis, they said.”

“Damn.”

“I didn’t have any relatives, no place to go, so I stayed in the town where she died.” Her voice drifts. “Next thing I know, I’m thirty-eight with a husband, two kids, and a wood-paneled station wagon.”

“So, you’re running away.”

“No. Maybe. Am I? Maybe I’m running
to
something.”

“Niagara on the Lake?”

“My life, Peggy. Maybe I’m running to my life, my
real
life.” The truth spills out after so many years, it pushes through the pinhole of discovery and bursts into the open like a newly birthed baby.

“And the husband, the kids,” Peggy says, “the dog you probably got, what about them? Is it just ‘adios amigos’?”

“I’ll destroy them if I stay.”

“Spoken from one who’s never been left behind.”

“I have no choice.” She leans forward, dares the other woman to understand. “
I have no choice.
I’m falling apart, a day at a time. I have to figure things out.”

“And then what? You’ll send them a note saying it’s been nice? My old man did that, it doesn’t work.”

Evie says nothing.

“They’ll hate you for leaving.”

Evie closes her eyes, tries to block out the pain of Peggy’s words. “They’d have hated me more if I’d stayed.”

***

She’s been on the road three days. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Peggy needs to make her deliveries and Evie needs time to think, come up with a plan. Niagara on the Lake is where she’s headed but once she gets there, then what? There’s only seventy-six dollars and thirty-two cents left from the hundred-dollar bill Rupe gave her for groceries. Her money is shrinking, spent on a toothbrush, comb, gum, bag of peppermint patties, and meals, though she keeps the latter to $2.99 dinner specials.

Peggy loans her a few oversized T-shirts and a jean jacket to fight off the early morning frosts. But soon, she’ll be down to no money and no plan.

They are driving through Lansing, Michigan. It is drizzling and Evie’s throat is sore, her head’s pounding and she’s shivering. Peggy pulls into a diner with a banner advertising “Home-cooking.” She knows everyone on this route, even what the specials are. This one’s called Jack’s and the specialty is always meatloaf and mashed potatoes with canned green beans. Evie and Peggy slide into one of the gray and silver booths and order coffee.

As she scans the menu, trying to decide if she wants to splurge on a side dish of “homemade” applesauce, the bell above the door jingles and a family of four enters: mother father, son, and daughter. Evie looks up and her eyes freeze on the boy. He’s in his mid-teens, tall, dark with wavy hair and silver-blue eyes, looking so much like Quinn that she almost runs to the pay phone and punches out the numbers for home.

“Evelyn?”

Oh, God,
the pain. She clutches her chest, her throat, opens her mouth, gasps.

“Evelyn?” The boy turns to his mother and smiles, a bright, wide smile that rips into her. “Evelyn!” She closes her eyes, tight, sucks in air, slowly, until the pain subsides and the image fades. When she opens them, the boy is gone. “What is it?”

“The boy who just walked in reminds me of my son.” She focuses on Peggy, afraid the Quinn look-alike will pop up in front of her and bring back the memories.

“I can take you home,” Peggy says quietly.

“I miss them.”

“We can leave now, drive straight through. It should put us back around 11:00 tomorrow night. Nobody has to know what really happened. You’ll just say you ran out of gas and a man picked you up and then he forced you to stay with him. Say that he didn’t touch you, and you don’t remember what he looked like or what kind of car he drove. If they keep at it, make something up. All they’ll care about is that you’re safe, right? They’ll want you back so you can all pick up right where you left off: car pools, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, real stuff, not Jack’s. Just like before.”

Evie wavers. She misses her children. She misses Rupe.

“Listen to me, Evelyn. I can help you if you’re ready. Do you hear me? But you have to be prepared to walk away and never look back. Your past life is gone, erased. If you start thinking about your daughter and how pretty her hair looked with the sun shining on it, you’re screwed. Trust me, I know. The only hope you have is moving forward, right now, that’s it.”

My past is gone.

“It’s your choice.”

My past is gone.

“You ready?”

Evie’s head moves and she’s not sure if she’s nodded or not. Maybe she shook her head. Or maybe not.

“Okay.” Peggy scratches her chin, tilts her blonde-streaked head and settles her gaze on Evie’s hair. “We’ll lose the hair first. Chop it real short and dye it. What color do you want to be? A redhead? A blonde?”

Evie touches her hair, fingers a few strands. She must have nodded. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll need some clothes, too. You can’t look like you’re on the run. And an identity. We’ll have to take care of that, too.”

“An identity?”

Peggy’s thin lips pull into a slow smile. “You leave that to me. I know people.”