Ordinary Beauty (9 page)

And that was when Candy came home, screeching her old Ford pickup into the driveway and getting out with a hammer in her hand. My mother appeared, triumphant, beside us, and Sims slid his arm from around my shoulder and leaned away.

My mother called, “See? Didn’t I tell you? They’re out here every day, snuggled up together all cozy, hugging and kissing and telling secrets. . . .”

Candy came storming up the sidewalk with murder in her eyes and the hammer in her fist but she wasn’t looking at him, no, she was looking at
me
and instinctively I leaned closer to Sims but he stood up fast and went inside, past my mother, who snickered drunkenly, swatted his arm, and drawled, “Busted.”

“You keep your skinny little child ass away from him!” Candy shouted, coming for me, and as adrenaline surged and keen terror carved my senses, I could see everything as if it was all finely drawn in front of me: the crazy light in her pale eyes, the snarl pulling back her lips and exposing those meaty red gums, and the hammer clenched in her freckled, white-knuckled hand.

She was crazy, as crazy as my mother was when she started digging at the invisible bugs she felt crawling around under her skin, or accusing me of making her coffee with turpentine or taping sheets over the closet doors so Homeland Security couldn’t send an airborne team in to steal the tinfoil she kept under the couch.

They were crazy. Both of them.

Candy charged the porch steps, and I dove off the side as the hammer came down, scrambled up, and took off running across Mrs. Carroll’s yard and down the street with Candy huffing, puffing, and cursing behind me, and my mother yelling, “You get your ass back here right now, Sayre! I didn’t say you could leave this property!”

But I didn’t stop running for a long time, bulleting down side streets and dodging cars until finally, chest heaving and legs burning like liquid fire, I sank down on a curb behind the library and drew great sobbing, whooping breaths until I could breathe normally again.

I sat there as dusk fell.

Sat there as happy little kids came prancing out with armloads of books and watched as their mothers and fathers carefully strapped them into car seats and drove away.

Sat there as groups of junior high girls came out giggling and talking loud about going down to Sal’s Pizza Place and glancing flirtatiously back over their shoulders at the group of junior high boys pushing and shoving and slouching along behind them.

Sat there as the inside lights went off and one by one the librarians got into their cars and left.

And when the moon was high and I was shivering with cold and exhaustion, a police car pulled up. An officer got out, shined the flashlight in my face, and said, “Are you Sayre Bellavia?”

I nodded, tears blurring my vision, and huddled even smaller because I knew what he was going to do, he was going to take me home and then I would be in for a world of hurt, that’s what my mother and Candy always called it whenever they had to hit me, and that made me start crying in earnest.

“Shh, it’s all right, come on,” he said, and when I rose he opened the back door of the police car. I climbed in, and he shut the door gently, not like he was mad, and that made me brave enough to stammer, “Am I in t . . . t . . . trouble?”

“You?” he said, sliding into the front seat and glancing at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes were brown, kind, and maybe sad, too. “No, you’re not in trouble.” He pulled a small pad from his shirt pocket and glanced at it. “We’ve been looking for you. Your neighbor Mrs. Carroll called us earlier and said she saw a woman with a hammer in her hand chasing you down the street.”

“That was Candy,” I said, swiping a hand across my damp eyes. “She thought I was trying to steal her boyfriend.”

His brows rose. “What?” He pulled out a pen and made a note on the pad.

I took that as disbelief and hurriedly said, “I wasn’t, I swear, but she didn’t let me say it. Me and Sims only talk and sometimes he gives me McDonald’s and hugs me when I’m sad.” My eyes welled up again. “I know he’s Candy’s boyfriend because he lives with us, but he’s the only one who talks to me since Grandma Lucy died.” I sniffled, and twisted my hands together in my lap. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

“Sims Pozorowicz?” the officer said, pausing in his writing and swiveling to face me over the seat.

I nodded. “Yup.”

“He lives in the same house you do?” he said, and now his voice was different, harder and not as friendly. He made another note, then touched the little walkie-talkie pinned to the front of his shirt and talked into it. I heard my name, and Sims’s, too.

“Uh-huh, since August,” I said and then, “He sleeps in Candy’s room.”

“I see.” He turned back to me. “Has he ever done or said anything that makes you feel funny, like uncomfortable?”

“No,” I said, and then squirming a little because it felt like lying, “well, he curses a
lot
and sometimes he calls Candy a fat skank when she’s not there . . .” I frowned, and thought harder. “Oh! And he has this really gross foot fungus and he always scratches himself here,” I wrinkled my nose and pointed to my crotch, “. . . and sometimes he comes into the bathroom naked when I’m in there peeing, but he never means to, he just forgets because the door doesn’t lock and he’s drunk, and him and Candy are . . .” I stopped, blushing, because I’d never told anyone any of the things I’d seen and heard. I wouldn’t even have known how to begin. “You know. Doing it.”

“Sayre, how old are you?” he said after a long moment.

“I just turned eight.” My stomach rumbled and I clapped a hand over it.

“Eight,” he repeated softly. “The same age as my daughter. Tell me, did you have supper tonight?”

“Nope,” I said. “No lunch, either.”

“Why not?” he said and his eyes were kindly again.

“Because the only food we have is mustard, and I hate that,” I said as my stomach grumbled even louder.

“All right, first let’s get you something to eat,” he said, facing front, pulling his door closed and glancing at me again in the rearview mirror. “McDonald’s sound good?”

“Uh,” I made a face, “could I have pizza instead?”

“Sure,” he said. “I kind of like Sal’s pies myself.”

And when we went into Sal’s I found out that he was the policeman’s uncle, and they laughed and joked and looked really happy to see each other, and that made me feel kind of left out because it had been so long since anybody was that happy to see me.

“And who is this lovely young lady?” Sal asked, peering over the counter and waggling his bushy gray eyebrows.

“Sayre Bellavia,” I mumbled, tracing the tile pattern on the floor with my toe.

“Ah,
bella via,
” Sal said, nodding. “Where I’m from it means
beautiful way,
did you know that?”

“No,” I said, gazing up at him.

“Well, it’s a beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” he said and his smile made me feel like a flower in the sun, and so we got our pizza and took it to headquarters where I ate four whole slices and immediately conked out on a cot in the coffee room.

When I woke up, a lady from social services was there to take me to somebody’s house because Candy had been arrested for trying to hit me with a hammer, my mother had been arrested for the meth they found on her when she got up in the face of the cop who was trying to arrest Candy, and Sims had been arrested for violating the terms of his parole, which, because of his third-tier sexual-predator status, specifically stated that he could not reside in a domicile with any children under the age of twelve.

Two days later, when my mother was released with a court date and I was returned to her, she came home, got high, and with an unnerving burst of manic energy, packed up all of Candy’s things and called one of the many Fee brothers to come and get them because, as she said while she was polishing the bathroom doorknob with the front of her T-shirt over and over and over, “I hate to do it, but she must of got hold of some
baaad
shit because she’s totally out of control and I can’t have her here kicking up drama all the time, especially with the cops and that nosy old Carroll bitch next door. That cat of hers better not set foot on this property or I swear to Christ she’ll never see it again,” she added in an ominous mutter and catching sight of herself in the mirror, scowled, abandoned the doorknob, and started raking her bitten-down nails over and over through her stringy hair. “Maybe I should go blond again. Do you think I should go blond? Maybe I should go blond. How would I look with blond hair? Like Cameron Diaz? Do you think I’d look like Cameron Diaz? I’m thin like her. It’s just my hair. You could do it for me. Yeah. Go ahead. Go down to the drugstore and get me hair color.”

“Mom,” I said. “I have no money.”

“Did I say anything about money?” she said and barked a laugh. She leaned into the mirror and picked at a sore, her once pretty face sallow and sunken. “Shit, if I’d waited till I had money to get what I wanted, I’d never of had anything.” The sore started to bleed and she stopped. “Fucking bugs are killing my skin. I got to get out of here.” She skimmed past me and clattered down the stairs.

I followed.

“Stay inside and don’t go anywhere,” she said, grabbing her battered purse. “You’ve got to lay low because they’re watching us. Don’t talk to anybody, don’t answer the phone, and don’t let anybody in unless you know them. Do you hear me?”

I nodded.

“Say it,” she said.

“I heard you,” I said.

“Good, because it’s just you and me now, so don’t fuck it up.” She headed for the door and stopped. “Get me a beer, would you?”

And I did, feeling a small flutter of hope as I trotted back and pressed the cold can into her trembling hand, and stood waving from the doorway as she hurried out into the night.

Just her and me now.

I had finally gotten my wish, and in the days to come I certainly lived to regret it, lying awake many nights that winter huddled under my coat because we had no money, no heat, and my mother was cranked up to full throttle and heading for a spectacular crash.

And then in February, one month short of a year since Grandma Lucy died, the sheriff came and escorted us off the premises because we’d lost the blue house to foreclosure, and so we ended up out on the street.

EVAN WAKES UP SCREAMING.

One minute I’m near drowsing next to Red in the front seat of the plow truck, watching from beneath heavy lids as the wipers swish back and forth, back and forth, and according to a glance at the battered CD case, listening to some old folkie named Jorma Kaukonen singing a quiet, kind of sad “Genesis,” and the next minute Evan is thrashing and grinding out the most horrible, ragged sounds filled with pain.

Red jumps and hits the brakes, and the plow truck fishtails down the road.

I turn and scramble straight through the gap between the seats and crouch on the floor, dodging Evan’s swings and somehow grabbing his arms, babbling, “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re all right, Evan, you have to stop, please, you’re going to hurt yourself,” but he doesn’t, he keeps moaning and writhing until the bad knee that was lying crooked shifts from inward to outward and then he just stops and deflates, sweating, tears streaking his cheeks, and shaking, covers his eyes and turns his face away.

“What the hell was that all about?” Red says, glancing back at me.

“I think we had his knee laid out the wrong way,” I say in a low voice, and am so freaked by that kind of agony, agony we might have caused by laying his leg down wrong that I feel sick. What if we’d twisted his tendons or a vein and had cut off his blood supply? What if pieces of shattered bone were sticking him or had cut into an artery and he was bleeding inside? What if—

“Sayre?” Evan whispers.

I lean close to his pale, pained face. “I’m here,” I say, taking his hand and trying to smile.

“Is this the ambulance?” he says weakly.

“No,” I say, and give in to the urge to stroke his poor, battered forehead. There’s no reason not to—he’s in pain and I’m the reason for it, and besides, once we get to the hospital we’re never going to see each other again anyway—but I’m afraid of how badly I want to comfort him, and that somehow by doing it I give myself away. “It’s the plow truck. It came just like we hoped it would.”

We.
I used that word without thinking and it’s a strong one, big and obvious, like I’m joining us together in a secret hope made public.

“Good,” he mumbles, his dark gaze holding mine, searching for reassurance just like a little kid. “I don’t remember . . . Oh no. Shit, I’m gonna puke.”

“Wait—” I say, and then he starts gagging and I have to try and lean him gently over the edge of the seat and he does throw up, down onto a pile of old coffee cups and other mud-spattered debris.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers when it’s over, wiping his chin on the back of his hand and turning his face away from me. “God, what a mess.”

“It’s all right,” I say, trying to hold my breath because the smell is awful.

“Hold on.” Red cracks his window and stops the truck. Opens his door, gets out, goes around to the bed of the truck for a snow shovel, and while I hold Evan up and away from the back door, Red shovels out everything on the floor, throwing it all in the back of the truck. “Poor bastard,” he says, getting back in, closing the door, and cranking up the heat. “How you doing back there, buddy?”

“Like shit,” Evan manages to say as I ease him back down against the door.

“Well, just hold on because we got about seven miles to go,” Red says, and hands back a bottle of Snapple. “Here, let him take a slug of that. Clean out his mouth.”

I open it and give it to Evan, watching as he takes a shaky drink. He hands it back and closes his eyes. Reluctantly, I climb back up front into my seat.

“Quite a night,” Red says, glancing over at me. “How are you holding up?”

I shake my head, staring out into the swirling snow lit by the headlights. The winter woods are stark, barren, and offer no real shelter, no safe haven for the lost or wounded. It’s a beautiful, dangerous, lonely place, and I have never been so thankful to be on my way out of it in my entire life.

“Bobcat,” Red says, pointing up the road.

There, up ahead, caught in the glare of the truck’s lights is a big, raggedy bobcat standing belly deep in snow at the edge of the road.

“Seen a lot of them around this year,” Red says, downshifting. “Must have been a big rabbit population this summer. Too bad, because they’re probably starving now.”

But not all of them. Not the one by Harlow’s trailer. That piece of pork I gave him might keep him going for a while and maybe, when I go back for my money and Misty, I’ll bring some more food. I’ll just leave it by the side of the road and he’ll find it. I’ll never know if it’s enough to save him because bobcats are solitary, secretive, and self-sufficient; they live alone, sleep alone, and die alone, and that thought makes me even more determined to bring back food for him.

Our approach sends the big cat leaping across the snowy road and off into the night.

Red reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a pack of gum. Offers it to me.

“No thanks.” And then I surprise myself by blurting out, “So, uh, what have you been doing since I last saw you? Are you still a youth minister down at the church?”

“Sure am,” he says, glancing at me.

“I used to go to Sunday school there when I was little.”

“Oh yeah? Why’d you quit?”

“Long story,” I say, sorry I brought it up.

“Well, I’ve got the time,” he says, and turns up the volume as the Beatles’ “Let It Be” flows out of the CD player.

“Nice touch,” I say with a wry smile.

He chuckles. “Never say God—and the Beatles—don’t have great timing.”

I sit mulling that over, letting the quiet grandeur of the song surround me. It’s a quarter to five in the morning, the darkest hour before dawn, and the cab is warm and cozy. Evan is sleeping. My mother is in the hospital, and Beale is forever beyond my reach.

There is nothing left to stop me from talking.

I catch my breath.

There is nothing left to stop me.

What remains of my heart, curled so tight for so long, cracks open, and pain, raw and undiluted by time, unfurls with an ache that leaves me breathless.

I clear my throat and before I lose my nerve, say in a rush, “I’m sorry I never thanked you for being so nice to me back then.” I don’t look at him but I can feel the air in the truck’s cab change. “I mean, I know it was a long time ago but it meant a lot.” He remembers, I know he does, because he was there at the end, in the graveyard, his blue eyes clouded with helpless sorrow, his gentle hand holding my limp one. I will never forget how sad he looked standing by Beale, whose eyes were swollen from crying, whose whole wonderful face was drawn and devoid of life, whose hands were shaking and who burst into terrible, wracking sobs as I crept to the edge of the gravesites and laid both wild, ordinary, beautiful, sparkling-with-tears bouquets of Queen Anne’s lace on the caskets.

“You’re welcome, Sayre. I just wish I could have done more,” he says quietly, tucking the gum back in his pocket. “I was sorry to hear that your mother and Beale had split up afterward, too. That must have been really hard for you, on top of everything else.”

I nod, throat tight.

“I came out to see you after the funeral, you know,” he continues, like since I’d brought up the past, it was now an open subject. “I heard that you and your mom had moved into that old cabin Candy Fee was renting outside of town, so I dropped by once to see you, thinking maybe you needed someone to talk to besides family, but you weren’t home. I spoke with your mom for a couple of minutes but she had friends over and was in a hurry, so I told her I’d come back to see you another time. She said not to bother because you were doing just fine.” He pauses. “I was hoping that once she told you I’d been out there, maybe you’d stop down at the church sometime, just to say hello but—”

“I never showed up,” I say in a low, rusty voice. “Because she never told me.” About him, or anyone else who’d cared enough about me back then to come looking. No, that information had only surfaced during our big fight over Christmas when, sick, furious, and too weak to really hurt me with her fists, she’d done something far worse, taunted me with a betrayal I hadn’t even known existed, a revelation so cruel and unforgivable that it knocked my legs out from under me, dropping me to my knees in despair and leaving my mother crowing in triumph.

Red glances at me, surprised, and says, “Well, then, it’s a little overdue, but tell me, Sayre, how have you been doing?”

I stare down through blurred eyes at my battered hands and the too-long sleeves of my bulky, donated sweater. “Not so good,” I whisper, and start to cry.