The Good Kind of Bad (12 page)

Anyone else might assume he was teasing me, light-heartedly poking fun at my penchant for shopping, though I knew better. The past week had taught me that.

He stood to attention in a standard issue vest, the faint aroma of engine grease protruding, presumably from working on the rust-bucket Chevelle again at Buddy’s garage, but there was something else. Like a dream just out of reach, it was like the more I tried to recall, the more it ebbed away.

‘I told you about Nina’s party. I needed a new dress.’ I didn’t look at him, not right in the eye, as I moved back into the kitchen.

‘Dress? What dress?’ Following me out of the lounge, he flailed his arms until ceasing the charades and pointing to the cooker. ‘I’ve been waiting, you know.’

‘For what?’

‘My dinner? I’ve waited hours, baby, and while you maxed out my credit card.’

‘You don’t own a credit card.’

‘Yeah, I
do
,’ he replied, sticking out his chin.

‘They won’t approve you for credit! As for your dinner, was opening the microwave door too much like hard work?’

Then he stumbled, the slurs verging on inaudible. With Joe insensibly tripping from foot to foot, beer foamed from the bottle before it slipped and hit the floor, like the oil slicked his hand too.

‘Joe!’ I jumped as the shards of glass shot up like a mushroom cloud.

‘It’s only glass. You never seen broken glass before?’ After regaining his footing and wiping a sodden hand down his top, he continued barking out orders. ‘I’m hungry. Make me some food.’

I let loose a cackle. His performance was verging between pitiful and pathetic. ‘I don’t have time for this, I’m supposed to be at Nina’s in an hour.’

He grinned back like he knew something I didn’t, his teeth forming a crescent moon. Then stepping forward, he grabbed my arm in a vice-like hold. With my skin pinched between his fingers, I tried pulling away, but his hand clamped down further. I was enveloped by the potent stench of beer breath as I wriggled and struggled and negotiated the pain.

‘Joe . . . let go of me,’ I whispered, gagging on the fumes. I couldn’t wriggle free. He moved with me, like some macabre two-step, delighting in my confusion with unsettling bursts of laughter. Looking into his face, I saw it, what was hidden behind his eyes. He was enjoying it. He liked it.

Standing firm, he only loosened his grip once I ceased struggling.

And then he hit me, slapping me hard across the cheek. As my hand caressed the throbbing above my jaw, I looked into his real face, the one ugly and violent ‒ the face he’d hidden well.

It was like I’d shrunk, drinking from a forbidden elixir that’d caused the world to double in size. In front of me Joe staggered, his arms outstretched as I instinctively backed to the door, my racing pulse and heightened senses punching home the danger. I tiptoed backwards, carefully, like he was an incendiary device ready to explode.

Then Joe appeared to relent, mumbling a could-be apology before realising it wasn’t towards him I was heading. As Joe returned to his throne and placed his head in his hands, I fled in tears, my long hair trailing behind me.

In Nina’s pink and grey sanctuary, the words and conversations of the party washed over me.

Nina’s cousin Ashley (another stunning could-be model in skin-tight Gucci) perched beside me on Nina’s vermeil chaise longue, striving for small talk about the more-than-likely stolen glittering band on my finger, but the replies stuck to my throat like tar.

It turned out my silence was the only thing stopping the screams.
Pull yourself together, it’s not like he beat you unconscious
. Yeah, it wasn’t like I’d become the latest domestic violence statistic or anything. Stage one, slap to the face. Stage five? A broken arm and a tumble down the stairs. I may have led a sheltered life, away from fear and terror and fabricated guilt, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew how these things worked.

Now I’d been summoned to the kitchen by a suitably concerned Nina, a rum and coke placed between my fingers as I sat on the bar stool, examining my skirt’s neat green pleats.

She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

Nina had plumped for a cream shift dress and matching Mary Jane’s for her
Girls’ Night In
soirée. It was the first time I’d seen her in nudes. Accompanied by a concerned-slash-empathetic guise, she looked positively nun-ish. Fitting then the pity was palpable, bleeding from her like I so prayed it wouldn’t.

Pity
.
Compassion
.
Sorrow
. Would this be my life after every punch? People telling me how
sorry
they were I married a man I barely knew? A man who, it turned out, liked to drink and shout and hit?

Nina moved to the other side of the kitchen island, resting her elbows on the top while her deep hazel eyes scanned my face for some hint of the truth. ‘Come on, you have to talk to me.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? Because you look like crap, and I’ve never seen you look anything other than red-carpet ready. You look like you’ve been crying or something. Your face looks . . . blotchy.’

‘Wow, thanks.’ It was the truth, of course, apart from the crying part.

‘Besides, people don’t come to a party to stare at the walls. Has something happened with Joe? He done something? Don’t make me guess.’

‘Guess what? That Joe was drunk when I got home?’

‘Wait, what?’

‘That I hadn’t made his dinner? That I didn’t think he was the kind of guy that’d . . .’ My voice broke as I smiled falsely through the tears. ‘One hard smack to keep me in line, Nina. That’s all it took.’

Nina stared me out for a moment before twisting to her left and grabbing the phone off the wall, shaking her head as she punched in the numbers. ‘Asshole.’

‘Wait, what are you doing?’ I asked in a broken croak, the panic moving up my throat.

‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m phoning Mickey.’

‘
What
? Please, Nina, don’t. It’ll only make things worse.’ What could be worse than Joe hitting me? Oh yeah, getting a cop who probably pummelled people to death to go deal with him.

‘Joe’s a scumbag! He hit you, honey. He hit you. What can be worse than that?’

‘Worse than, I don’t know, sinking his knuckles into some guy’s cheek like Mickey does?’

After Nina dropped the handset, I knew I deserved Nina’s stare, but not the second slap across my face of the night.

After clutching the
other
side of my face, I looked up at Nina who gave back a blank, if-I-only-had-a-brain stare.

‘Oh, god. I didn’t mean that. Like, I
so
didn’t mean that. My bad?’

‘I’m going,’ I managed through a laugh while sliding off the stool.

‘Tell me you’re joking!’

‘Watch me, Nina.’

‘I said I was sorry! Don’t go back to him, not tonight. You can take the guest room. It’ll give you time to . . . think it over. Girl, come on! I am
sorry
! Don’t go back to Joe, please?’

‘I’m married to him, Nina. What am I supposed to do, never go home?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe? It’s not like you know him.’

‘You
did
mean it.’

‘Come on, you’re hardly even married, and Joe is trouble. You know it, I know it . . . and now instead of walking away while you still have a chance, you want to go back to Joe and his sense of entitlement, male privilege bullshit while he’s still smashed? That’s plain crazy. Look, I’m pissed is all. I’m sorry I hit you, I don’t think what I’m doing most of the time, but what about the girls’ night in? We didn’t get to the movie and cocktails yet. The girls have brought over every chick flick they have, even the crappy ones. Mickey even downloaded some. Come on, cut me a break here.’

I stalled at the door, scanning Nina in all her vestal finery. ‘I’ll see you later,’ I muttered and rushed out the door.

I spent ten minutes walking by the closed boutiques and open wine bars of Nina’s neighbourhood, the night warm and breezy. I walked, thought, and walked some more. Almost a month post-wedding and the honeymoon (yeah, never had one of those either) was becoming less rose-tinted by the day. Even before tonight I’d had to pre-empt Joe, to think before I spoke to sidestep the ridicule. I found myself yearning for those early, sunny, vivacious days of the park. The glittery, sparkling promises of the future I’d craved. Had they ever existed, or had it all been my imagination?

I wanted my old Joe back. I wanted to pretend things were good. I wanted to know, not believe, I’d made the right decision to walk up that aisle.

Now hints of my mother’s prophecy had surfaced over the past week, of the
vagabond
I’d chosen to marry, the water had muddied to a thick, dark paste. It was like he was slipping me a dram of poison with each new dig. I’d found myself walking on eggshells to keep the peace and restrain the temper. I was pandering to him, for a snippet of a compliment or hint of a smile. That’s all I wanted. Validation, proof; some prophetic sign to tell me this was right.

Excitement, danger and living on impulse were all well and good, but we were heading in a new direction now. God bless alcohol. God bless Joe.

I thought about a hotel, of a solitary night and stale room service breakfast where I could do the walk of shame in the AM, but it’d only postpone the inevitable. I had to go home some time, and if I did maybe I’d see it again: my husband’s face before I’d bolted through the door. That look of complete humility.

Yes. I’d go home. He’d apologise and everything would go back to normal. After all, I’d gone to Nina’s for refuge and found myself with another smarting cheek. And yet somehow it was better coming from Nina than Joe? A woman rather than a man? It was still a slap. It’d still hurt. They’d both been sorry. But who mattered more?

I climbed out of the taxi on South Evergreen and glanced up at our dilapidated building, clutching my cheek – the lounge light casting a sallow glow into the night. Maybe he hadn’t sobered up yet, and perhaps was angry I ran. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, or maybe I wasn’t being fair. He could’ve had the day from hell, the week even, drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a bottle.

I’d made a commitment to Joe, and for the rest of my life. We were married. I couldn’t give up after a few tough days. That’s what I used to do. That was the old me. This could be the turning point, to stop the rot and save us. I couldn’t run. I had to go back.

Entering the apartment, I half expected broken glass and overturned furniture, though everything was as I’d left it a few hours before. Passing through the kitchen and inching open the lounge door, I found Joe on the floor, curled in a ball and snoring loudly.

I crept from the room, careful not to wake him. Even though I knew the conversation could wait until morning, I was anything but eager for the sunrise.

‘You want one egg or two?’ Joe asked eight hours later as I entered the kitchen with sleep crusting my eyes. Accompanied by a jaunty hum, Joe stood by the cooker, cracking the eggs on the side of the small pan and sliding them artfully through the grease.

The swagger had gone from his step. The demeanour was humble, his manner quiet and slight and he’d even made breakfast. Last night felt overwhelmingly trivial in the cold light of the bare bulb. It was like I’d seen it in a movie or play, the pain hazy and the arguments of the past few days almost unreal. Maybe Joe
was
back.

‘You look amazing by the way. I mean, your boobs. Get yourself a new sweater?’ he offered, half turning to me.

I drew the teal wrap tighter around my waist. ‘I wore it that night on Navy Pier, remember? You said I was prettier than the sunset.’

‘I said that? Oh yeah. It’s coming back to me now.’

He gestured to me with his aide-memoire, the spatula. Of course he didn’t remember – whether that was due to the drink or because he was a lousy husband, I couldn’t tell.

I paused before sitting at the kitchen table, the tension crackling like live wires. Avoiding Joe’s searching gaze, probably trying to suss out how angry I was on a scale of one to ten, I reached for the morning edition of the 
Sun-Times
. In Back of the Yards, a mother had lost four children in a house fire, another public sector strike loomed, and Tuco, the Border Collie found wandering in the middle of Michigan Avenue last Thursday was still in need of a home.

Stepping over and moving my paper to one side, Joe placed the oversized portion of sausage, egg, toast and over-cooked maple-roasted bacon in front of me with a flurry of hand last used by George Bemo. ‘I made your favourite.’

Feeling only a
tad
nauseous, I prodded a shrivelled sausage with my fork, like I was checking for signs of life. It was definitely not my preferred choice of breakfast. ‘There’s no way I’ll eat all this. I’ll get fat.’ I hoped he might take the hint and switch it for a bowl of my usual muesli instead.

‘You’re a size zero and I never see you eat anything anyway,’ Joe muttered through a mouthful of toast. ‘You need to eat something that isn’t low fat crap. Get some meat on your bones.’ Wiping a greasy hand down his vest, he retrieved a cigarette from behind his ear like some two-bit magician, grinning as I nibbled a piece of bacon.