Baby Love (27 page)

He stopped at two different Howard Johnsons on the Connecticut Turnpike. He insisted on buying her a sundae like his at the second one, and when she left three quarters of it sitting there, he said, “We can’t let this go to waste now, can we?” and ate it all in about two bites. He said, “Have you ever tasted Baskin-Robbins’ Chocolate Almond? That’s the best flavor in the United States.”

When they got to Rocky Hill he said gee, he could use some Tendersweet clams right about now. That was the limit. Val said she’d just stay on the highway and find another ride.

It was a couple that picked her up at Rocky Hill. In their fifties maybe. Val is never sure about the ages of old people.

Anyway, the woman looked like a real grandmother type. In fact, she was a grandmother. She took all these pictures out of her wallet, of her grandchildren. Called them grandkids. She said, “We have one just about your age. Fifteen, right? Sixteen? Does your mother know you’re out hitchhiking like this? It’s not safe, you know. You never know whom you are going to meet.

“Isn’t she a lovely young girl, Perley?” the woman said. Perley was the man’s name.

“Yes, indeed, Mother,” Perley said.

“So young and innocent,” said the woman. “So much to learn.”

Perley said that’s true.

“Show her your photographs,” said the woman. “I bet she would find them very educational.” Then she asked Val if she would like to see more photographs. Val said sure.

Even after some of the movies she has seen with Warren Hackett, and that wild party he took her to that his stepfather gave for a British new wave band whose records he produced, even after that, Val wasn’t prepared for Perley’s photographs. He kept them in the same type of picture holder the woman used for her grandkids. Only these were pictures of naked little girls, around junior high school age. Sometimes there were little boys in the pictures too. Sometimes there were old men like Perley.

“Wouldn’t you like Perley to show you how to do those things?” said the woman. “He would be pleased as Punch, and I wouldn’t mind one bit.”

That was when Val said, “Please let me out of the car.”

She was scared that they wouldn’t, but Perley just said, “Well, surely, although Mother is going to fret about you, out on the highway this time of night.” Val got out of there so fast she forgot her overnight bag with the eighty dollars in it.

She doesn’t know where she is now, but she remembers, around the time Perley put his hand on her knee, seeing a sign that said Welcome to New Hampshire. There was a bridge they passed under, with the words painted on it: “I Love you Sally McDermott.” It was about then that Mother said, “Don’t mind me. I like to watch.”

It’s probably about two o’clock in the morning now. Val’s arms are covered with goose bumps and there hasn’t been a car on the road for twenty minutes. She has begun to cry, and the ridiculous thought has struck her that she wishes her mother was here.

Several things went wrong for Wanda tonight. First Mr. Pineo said her uniform was too long, hem it. And Wanda knows if she does, the customers will be able to see right up her legs when she reaches into the potato chip bin. “If I wanted some granny serving my ice cream I’d put up a help-wanted notice at the old folks’ home,” said Mr. Pineo.

Then Ronnie Spaulding came by for some fried chicken, and Sharon Lovett was with him, all over him. Nancy, the waitress who brought their order, said Ronnie was handing out free beers all over the place and telling people he hit the jackpot. The sweepstakes maybe. It must’ve just happened. He didn’t mention a thing about any jackpot this afternoon. And tonight he didn’t even say hi to Wanda.

A man came by with a bunch of little boys on some baseball team. They all wanted ice cream, and they kept changing their minds every two seconds. Two of the boys started squirting ketchup at each other, and a big blob landed on Wanda in a very embarrassing place. The man who was supposed to be in charge of the boys didn’t even get mad at them. One kid in particular—Wanda just wanted to shake him.

They all have a million things they want. Hold the onions. Extra napkins. No ice in the water. I like my burgers pink inside. Do you have a cherry—ha ha—for my sundae. They throw their straws on the ground and butt out their cigarettes in the oozed-over mustard. They want their change in dimes, for the dryer. Where’s the bathroom? My kid just bit off the bottom of his cone and it’s dripping all over the place. Can I have another one?

Then they don’t leave a tip.

After they closed up and Nancy had finished cleaning her station and gone home, Mr. Pineo said to her how about a little something. Now he is going to expect it all the time. He put his hand on her ass like he owned her. Wanda said, “I’ve got to pick up my daughter at a friend’s house.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said. She could imagine.

Her feet are so sore. She should’ve got a bigger size shoes. Wanda feels like she’s even gained weight in her feet.

It’s a half-mile walk to Sandy’s. Even though the evening has cooled off, Wanda is sweating. She can’t wait to take off her bra and panty hose, fix herself a bowl of macaroni. She’s really looking forward to seeing Melissa too. Six hours is the longest Wanda has ever been away from her. She’ll give her a big hug and tell her she’s sorry for getting mad. She won’t do that anymore. Tomorrow she’s going down to Zayre and get the Fisher-Price musical Ferris wheel.

Sandy is sitting there at the kitchen table, crying. The party streamers are still up, also the balloons. “Mark hasn’t come back,” she says when Wanda comes in. “He said he feels trapped and old. He said he wished he was in Alaska. He got fired.”

Wanda feels bad for Sandy. She’s really sorry to hear this. But right now she also wants to get Melissa and go home.

“Oh,” says Sandy. “I thought you knew. Melissa’s grandmother came and got her.”

At 3 a.m.—Ann has finally fallen asleep—the telephone rings. She has been lying on the living room couch, on account of the bat in her bedroom, so she picks it up on the first ring.

“You can go ahead now,” says the operator. Then she hears coins clicking in a pay phone.

“I hope I didn’t offend you before.” It is the deep-voiced man from the ad, of course.

“But you and I are both beyond being delicate about things, aren’t we? Why should we pretend? I just knew from your voice, from that card you sent, that you’ve had enough of dealing with the world. And I wanted to say I’ll take care of everything. You’ve been taking care of things by yourself for too long now, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” says Ann. She feels very tired. She’s also drunk on Kahlua.

“And you need a man.”

“Yes,” says Ann. That’s also true. She is half asleep.

“And I’m hungry for your love,” he says. “I’ve got such a lot of love. I’m going to give it to you.”

Ann thinks she has heard those words somewhere in a song.

“Put on your pretty summer dress,” he says. “I want to make love to you, yes, yes. The healing has begun.”

It occurs to her that she doesn’t know his name.

“It isn’t important,” he says. She hadn’t even asked him.

“Just be there waiting for me,” he says. “I’m coming for you soon. All you need to do is wait for me.”

She doesn’t have to do anything but wait. She can just lie here on the couch.

“Just be ready for me,” he says. “Just leave the door open, that’s all.”

She knows there is no need to give him directions. He will find her.

“I will take care of everything,” he says. “You won’t believe how strong I am.

“Total devotion,” he says. “That’s the only thing.”

Mark has been driving for a couple of hours but now he has no particular destination in mind. He is not even going in the direction of Alaska, in fact. He isn’t wearing warm enough clothes.

Vermont. “I love you Sally McDermott.” The words have been painted on this bridge ever since Mark can remember. The poor sucker who put them there is probably married with five kids now, and Sally McDermott most likely weighs two hundred pounds. Every time her husband drives under this bridge he must feel like a class A dope, thinking love would last as long as a coat of spray paint.

Or passion anyway—the hots—or whatever you call the feeling Mark used to get nights in the backseat, with Sandy and a six-pack. Winter afternoons, junior year, a basketball between his fingertips, poised for a foul shot—concentrating, focusing on that place inside the hoop, but also thinking: She’s in the bleachers, she’s watching. Telling her: “You’re my dream girl, you’re all I’ll ever need.” All those things they sing about on the radio, that he believed.

Gone now, except something they don’t sing about. Just feeling safe, and comfortable. Knowing nothing wonderful will happen, but nothing terrible either. Fit together, one into the other, like two spoons in a silverware drawer. “Honey, I’m home.” Two eggs every morning and a drawerful of clean socks, walking down Main Street, not hand in hand, but swinging a child between the two of them. A cup of cocoa on a cold night, and a handmade Christmas stocking with your name on it in sequins.

He has known all along, of course, that he would turn back, and now he does it. Pulls a U-turn in the middle of the highway—his last adventure for the evening, he thinks. Only up ahead, just beyond the Sally McDermott bridge, is a scrawny girl in a short-sleeved shirt and platform shoes and her thumb sticking out. No suitcase, no jacket. A person could wait all night for an eastbound car on this section of road.

Mark looks in the rearview mirror and smooths back his hair, reaches for a cigarette. He brakes, leans over to open the door on her side.

“Am I glad you stopped,” she says, jumping in. She looks about fifteen. The hairs on her arms are standing up and her teeth are chattering. Mark has never seen a girl with a tattoo before. On her earlobe.

All the house lights are turned off when Mrs. Ramsay pulls up to the Just-like-nu Shop. But she is sure Tara will understand once she hears the plan. Mrs. Ramsay could see, when she told Tara about the other girl and the clinic, that Tara was as upset as she is to think of the girl murdering her baby. She pounds on the door. A light comes on. The door opens.

“What is it?” Tara has opened the door only partway.

“I have to talk to you.”

“We just did a few hours ago. If my mother wakes up she’ll kill me.”

“I have figured out my plan now. I want you to help me.”

“Couldn’t we talk another time? Maybe tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow will be too late. I will be gone. I am driving south. Taking my granddaughter on a vacation.”

Driving south. Driving away. Maybe she’ll pass through Georgia. This is Tara’s chance to get away.

She’s packed in fifteen minutes. She wraps Sunshine in a towel and ties a knitted cap over her head. The baby doesn’t even wake up.

For a second there, Doris had this look on her face as if Reg was strangling her. He has never seen her look like that before, while they’re having sex. Normally she just closes her eyes and purses her lips, as if she’s thinking about how much things cost.

But for a minute she looked like she was dying, and Reg had the thought that he killed her and now he was going down the road, to Ann. Then Doris came out of it and she began to cry in this funny squeaky way that sounded like Jill when she was little. Reg put his arms around her then. “Don’t cry, honey,” he says. “It’s all right.”

“Don’t leave me,” says Doris.

“Why would I do a thing like that?” says Reg. He pats her, the same way he pets Chester, their cocker spaniel.

Tomorrow morning, early, he’s thinking, he will take down his rifle. He is going down to the girl’s house. He’s going to shoot those damn bats.

The girl’s name is Val. (“As in Valium,” she said.) She has seen the Rolling Stones live. Also the B52’s and the Eagles and Blondie. She was going to see the Who, but then all those people got killed at that concert in Cincinnati and her mother grounded her. She saw Peter Townshend at Bloomingdale’s once though. He’s not as tall as you’d think.

Mark feels like one of the Beverly Hillbillies, sitting on the gold terry-cloth seat covers of his Valiant and talking to her. She’s four years younger than him but she knows so much. She goes to a private school called Walker. There’s a girl in her class who grows mushrooms in her locker that are supposed to be hallucinogenic. There’s an entire drawer in the lost and found filled with nothing but cocaine spoons.

He turns on the radio, hoping for some really heavy rock. All he can get is a French-Canadian station and country. He tries the dial. “Hey, turn it back,” she says. “That’s perfect. I feel like I’m in an episode of
Happy Days.
Time Warp City.”

Mark doesn’t know what she’s talking about but he thinks she may be making fun of him. He wishes he still had that bag of New York dope.

“So what do people do around here for thrills?” she says. “Go to Clint Eastwood film festivals? Have a contest to see who has the most Kenny Rogers albums?” The song that’s playing is “Lucille.” You picked a fine time to leave me.

“Get high, listen to the Dead. You know,” he says. He’s not about to mention trout fishing.

“I bet all the girls marry their high school sweetheart and have ten kids by the time they’re eighteen and live happily ever after, right?”

“I guess some do.”

“ ‘Bingo Every Thursday Night,’ ” she says. They have just passed a Moose lodge. “Bowling. I bet that’s big.”

“Where I live,” says Mark, “we have this miniature golf course. That’s where everyone goes parking Saturday nights. There and the dump.” He feels proud when she laughs at that.

“A girl I know got laid by this gas station attendant in Vermont who lived near her parents’ summer place,” says Val. “Actually, it was a real hot and heavy romance. He wanted to get married. The whole bit. Of course she was going to Vassar in the fall.”

“What happened?” says Mark.

“Gee, I don’t know. She majored in women’s studies, I think.”

Some guy on the country station is singing “Would you lay with me in a field of stone?” If I could just get some decent music, Mark is thinking, I might get somewhere with this girl.