Mad Girls In Love (22 page)

“Frogs,” said Dorothy. “Leeches.”

“Runny noses,” said Violet. “Amniotic fluid. Breast milk. Menstrual blood. Salt. Sweat.”

“Shut up, Violet,” Aunt Clancy told her, laughing.

“Thirst,” I said. “Fountains.”

“Drowning,” said Dorothy.

“Floating,” I said.

“Faster!” Jennifer cried, towing us along. Her laughter rose up into the air, a beautiful sound like a spoon tapping against fine crystal. “Dance, Mama,” she said, tugging on my hand. “Dance.”

 

It had just stopped raining when I pulled into the parking lot of the Caney Fork Truck Stop, a squatty cement building trimmed in green neon. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I smoothed back my hair. Today I had it swept up into a Grace-like twist and was wearing a blue floral dress with a low sweetheart neckline and puffed sleeves that I'd found at the junk store. On my feet were blue leather shoes with double ankle straps and high, thick heels. We'd all raided Miss Gussie's attic, finding a mother lode of vintage fashions—the latest fad for the fall of '74. But I was a little surprised at myself for going to all this trouble for a man who hid in the bathroom and who may or may not be a wife beater.

When I stepped inside the truck stop, he was leaning against a red

SEAT YOURSELF
sign looking crisp and collegiate in dark green corduroy pants and brown tasseled loafers. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, showing a triangle of coppery hair and deathly pale skin. The hair, as always, was shocking. When he saw me, he smiled and placed his hand on my elbow.

“It's not the International House of Pancakes,” Dr. Saylor said with an aw-shucks shrug. “But it's the closest thing we've got in Crystal Falls.”

A haze drifted over the tables, cigarette smoke and grease, making my eyes water. Two truckers turned around and gaped, their mouths filled with scrambled eggs.

“Is this table okay?” Dr. Saylor asked, gesturing to a window booth, which looked out onto the weedy parking lot. The windows were spotted with raindrops. Instead of curtains or blinds, there was a philodendron growing over them, attached here and there with green thumbtacks.

“Mmmhum,” I said, glancing toward the ominous cloud of smoke drifting from the kitchen toward the dining room. Not a single worker wore a hairnet—Aunt Clancy would croak if she saw this place. I scooted my hips across the booth, and Dr. Saylor sat down across from me. Despite the outrageous hair, he had rather delicate features. Today his eyes looked brown, without any yellow. I looked for his hairlip scar. It was pale and white and curved. Afraid he'd catch me staring, I dropped my gaze to the table. I could see tracks of a recent wiping on the Formica. In our window, the philodendron had been trained to fall in strips. The sun fell in long, slender bars, shining through the heart-shaped leaves.

“What an interesting idea,” I said, reaching up, rubbing my fingers over a glossy leaf. As Dr. Saylor reached out to touch the plant, his hand accidentally bumped into mine. I gingerly traced my finger down the vine, away from his hand. I was relieved to see our waitress appear, her wide hips swaying. Her eyelids were daubed with green iridescent shadow.
Minnie
was embroidered on her left pocket. She plunked down two menus on the table.

“Coffee?” she asked Dr. Saylor.

He nodded. “Sure, I could use some. How about you, Bitsy?”

I smiled up at Minnie. “Fresca, please.”

Minnie made a note and then drifted off. I lifted the menu, which was two faded mimeographed sheets, each encased in a cracked and yellowed plastic sheath. In ballpoint pen, someone had sketched a crude trout in each corner, its gaping lips about to bite into a hook that looked like Dr. Saylor's scar. The Green Parrot's menus featured printed calligraphy and a parrot logo. In addition to the menus, Zach had set up an oversize chalk-board where the daily specials were written out in pink chalk. The café was a perfect blend of cute and classy, trendy and traditional. Customers felt hip when they dined there. For the duration of lunch, they could be part of the counterculture without having to travel any distance or make any permanent changes in their diet, politics, or lifestyle. Not that most people in Crystal Falls actually thought about such things.

Minnie returned, holding a tray. She set down the coffee, a wisp of steam rising up, then my Fresca. With a sigh, she pulled from her pocket the same type of pad that I used at the Green Parrot. “Y'all decided yet,” she drawled, “or do you need more time?”

“Give me one more minute, but you go ahead,” I said to Dr. Saylor.

“Okay, then. I'll have the Trucker's Special.”

I glanced down at the menu. The Trucker's Special offered pancakes, sausage, grits, hash browns, and four eggs, any style.

“How do you want your eggs, sugar?” Minnie asked.

“Sunny-side up, please.”

“With extra toast for dunking?”

“Definitely.” Dr. Saylor nodded.

“And you, ma'am?” Minnie smiled at me patiently while I studied the menu, searching for something that wasn't doused in two pounds of grease.

“Do you have salads?” I asked hopefully.

“Not really. Well, we have tuna.” Minnie made a face. She leaned toward me and whispered, “
If
you like mayonnaisy things, that is. You ain't saving no calories, trust me. I'd get the omelet. My motto is, if you're gonna eat something fattening, you might as well eat something tasty. You know what I'm saying?”

I smiled and nodded. I liked Minnie's style. “Have you been waitressing long?” I asked her.

Before Minnie could respond, Dr. Saylor interrupted, “Just make that two Trucker's Specials.”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “That's too much.”

“It's a bargain,” said Minnie. “You get one of everything.”

“We're not coming for the food, anyway,” Dr. Saylor said, giving me a knowing look.

“Ain't heard that one before.” Minnie raised her eyebrows and scribbled on the pad. “I guess you two are in love.”

She bustled off, and Dr. Saylor propped his arm on the back of his booth. “My baby sister Jobeth used to work here,” he said. “That's how I know about it.”

“I'm a waitress at the Green Parrot Café.” I touched the philodendron again.

“Well, I'll have to start eating lunch there.” He smiled. The sun blazed through the window, shining through his Afro, making his scalp gleam. “When you aren't waiting tables, what're you doing?”

“I like to work in the garden with my aunt.” I rubbed a spot on the table.

“I used to have plants. You know, ferns and whatnot. But I've been thinking that I'd like to study astronomy, learn the constellations.”

“Yes, that would be neat. Do you have a telescope?”

“No, but maybe I'll get one.” He leaned across the table and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. “So soft and pretty,” he said. “I wonder what you'd look like as a redhead.”

Awful
, I almost said but stopped myself. I leaned back, and my hair slipped from his fingers.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I just can't seem to keep my hands to myself.”

I let that pass.

“You don't feel comfortable with me, do you?”

“Should I?”

“Maybe you will when you get to know me better.” He folded his hands. “Do you have any questions?”

About what?
I thought. But I said, “Why did you and your wife split up?”

“We just did.” His face turned red, and he looked down at his hands.

“Were you having an affair?” I thought this was probably the reason, because he'd acted pretty forward with me from the get-go.

“No, no! You've got me pegged all wrong. I'm not the type to run around. I mate for life.”

“Maybe you still love her. Why don't you try and patch things up?”

“And risk death?” he cried. Several truckers turned around to stare.

“Fiona's a violent woman,” he mumbled, his cheeks turning purple. “She beats me.”

I blinked, wondering if I'd misunderstood. “You mean, like, she hits you?”

“All the time. Last night, she chased me with a hot spatula. I've got a mark to prove it.” He glanced over his shoulder, then rolled up his sleeve, to reveal a square red patch above his wrist. I saw little dots, each corresponding to the holes in a spatula.

“She started beating me on our honeymoon,” he said. “And she never stopped. But I never laid a hand to her. Not ever. Not that I'm expecting a medal or anything. But I put up with a lot.”

I squeezed my hands together, remembering how Claude pushed my head into the sink, his fingers digging into my neck. And then I remember how I'd bashed in his face.

“But if she's so violent, why are you still there?” I managed to ask.

“Squatter's rights. She wants the house, and legally it's half mine. But I paid for it all.”

Minnie was bearing down on our table, her arms loaded with trays. She began setting down plates in front of Dr. Saylor, rapidly covering the table's shiny surface: four sunny-side up eggs, ruffled strips of bacon, disks of sausage, buttery grits, hash browns, fried apples, biscuits, toast.

“Man, look at this.” Dr. Saylor pursed his thin lips and whistled.

“Ain't it a beauty?” Minnie grinned, arranging plates in front of me.

“And it was fast, too,” said Dr. Saylor.

Minnie grinned, as if she was personally responsible for the swift service. I wondered how long ago the food had been prepared.

“Y'all need some milk to wash it all down?”

“Bring us the whole cow.” Dr. Saylor grinned at Minnie, then he turned his attention to the table, gazing rapturously at the food. I felt dizzy breathing in the greasy fumes.

“After all this, I won't be able to eat for a week,” I said.

“Me, either.” Dr. Saylor squirted catsup over his hash browns.

I lifted my fork, speared a sausage. A droplet of grease hit my plate. I still wasn't one-hundred percent convinced that he was telling the truth. From the corner of my eye, I watched Dr. Saylor digging into his eggs. Freckles were splattered on the backs of his fingers, way too many to count, and his nails were marred by white dashes and dots, like his body was sending urgent signals in Morse code.
Danger, Stay Away
. Or the code might have said:
Harmless, Free Roses. Take Advantage.

“This food is de-licious,” he said, shoving a forkful of hash browns into his mouth. A blob of catsup hit the front of his shirt, directly over his heart, neat as a bullet hole. “But it's not as good as El Toro's. Maybe one of these days, we'll go there, just you and me.”

“Please don't take this the wrong way,” I said, “but I'm afraid to go anywhere with you. You're still living with Fiona. What if she just cracks?” I snapped my fingers to emphasize my point, and he flinched.

“The only thing she'll crack,” he said, a grim look crossing his face, “is a whip—across my back.”

In a yard sale cookbook find, Clancy Jane found a recipe for a dish called Buddha's Jewel—tofu dumplings floating in a sweet-and-sour sauce, with mushrooms and water chestnuts. She ran to the cramped, cookbook-lined office in the back of the café to show it to Zach. He vetoed the idea, arguing that Buddha had
three
jewels, not one, and besides, the customers might confuse it with the “family jewels.” She hadn't thought of that.

He suggested instead that they serve a tofu and spinach quiche, a big hit up north where he was from, and reached for
The Vegetarian Epicure
, volume I, by Anna Thomas. While he reverently thumbed through the index, Clancy Jane noticed again his gorgeous hands, and was glad she was wearing a wispy voile tunic over jeans and Violet's red shoes, each decorated with a leather rose. She moved closer to look over his shoulder at the recipe but told him she hadn't totally given up on Buddha's balls. He laughed and said she reminded him of his gutsy friends back home. Clancy asked him if Crystal Falls didn't seem like home now and his reply was, “I'm like Odysseus. I pine for Ithaca.”

She started to ask if Odysseus was one of his friends up there, but was afraid he'd think she was prying, so she just asked him what Ithaca was like. Instead of answering he said he had something important to discuss. Clancy Jane could feel her heart tapping away, and wondered if he could feel it too. Then he asked how she would feel about expanding—opening the café for breakfast.

She realized no matter how long he had been there, he was right, he hadn't made this his home. She gently tried to explain that the folks in Crystal Falls love their grits and biscuits. But seeing his face fall she added that she guessed they could serve cheese grits. Zach wanted a hipper menu, of course. Omelets, blueberry waffles, spiced coffee cake, home-jams. And flavored coffee.

Clancy Jane pointed out that they'd be working seven full days a week and would die of exhaustion. He just laughed and said not to worry, she'd get her beauty sleep. Then he pinched her cheek.
Would he do that if he wasn't attracted to me?
Clancy Jane thought. She thought he liked her, but he knew she was married, and of course there was the age difference—ten years was a bit much. He was probably smart not to add any more headaches to his life. But if he was older—or if Clancy was younger—they would have made the perfect couple.

Her mind filled with all the older women/younger men stories she had ever heard, she went home to break the news to Byron. She found him in the kitchen, reading a medical journal at the harvest table. It was the first thing in their house that been theirs as opposed to his or hers from previous lives. They had found it at an antique shop out in the country and it wouldn't fit into the Volvo, so they had tied it to the roof. When they got it into the kitchen, Clancy Jane had hopped on top of it, feeling the rough wood beneath her thighs, and held out her arms to Byron. When they started making love, she had feared that the table might cave in, but it remained upright.

Now Byron lowered his magazine, and she told him that she was thinking of opening the café for breakfast. He raised his eyebrows and said, “This is your idea?”

“Well, mine and Zach's,” she clarified.

Byron threw down his magazine and got up from the table. Clancy Jane yelled after him, “Gee thanks for being supportive.”

He shouted back over his shoulder, “I
have
been.”

Clancy Jane's response was a tirade about how she couldn't sit home just waiting for him and that her work at the café was important, that food was a symbol of nurturing.

He laughed. “
Nurturing?
Did I hear
you
say
nurturing
? There hasn't been one egg in this house since we got married. But go ahead, feed omelets and eggs Benedict to the masses. At least someone will get to eat.”

“That's not fair,” she cried. “Are you forgetting all the eggs I put in your birthday cake? And what about that huge steak I fixed? God, your memory is short.”

“I knew you'd say that,” he told her and quickly left the room.

“I should've married a vegan,” she said under her breath. “Maybe next time I will.”