Zeke (18 page)

“I just get sad every time I see
that girl,” Ginger mumbled after Sue left the room. “It’s a damn shame.”

“Don’t you worry now, her face will
catch up to her nose someday. Happens all the time,” Marge said wisely.

“Do you think Linda and Frank even
realize they have an ugly child?” Ginger snapped her chewing gum.

“No child is ugly, Ginger,” Marge admonished.
“Don’t let your brother hear you talk that way. It would tear him up.”

“I just feel sorry for them, is
all,” Ginger continued. “Dressing her up in those frilly dresses and putting
ribbons in her hair. Poor little thing. It’s like planting flowers around an
outhouse.”

“Just stop that,” Marge scolded,
her expression superior. “There are more important things in this world than
good looks. She has inner beauty. Like every human soul, she has a cosmic value
in this universe. So what if she’s plain? At least she’s not fat. Now Harold’s
boy, he’s got some real problems.”

“No doubt,” Ginger agreed, admiring
her glossy nails. “No doubt.”

Sue had slunk away and hid in her
room. She’d cried into her pillow until there were no tears left.

Off and on, for a week afterward,
she’d crept to the mirror and examined her face. Even into young adulthood, Sue
hated Aunt Ginger, while another deeper part of her still admired the woman.
She’d suffered silently the pain of her first serious heartbreak.

The injury from those words had
stayed with her like a splinter that’s buried itself deep, often forgotten, but
always there. Afterward, she’d refused to wear ribbons in her hair anymore. She
asked her mother to buy her some blue jeans, and gave up the frilly dresses she
had loved.

Her parents had assumed she was
entering a tomboy phase. Overnight, she had become a quiet child, almost
withdrawn. But she consoled herself, thinking, at least I’m not fat.

She had never told anyone what she
overheard, and she vowed she never would. But now Zeke stared at her with
irritation, expecting an explanation.

“I asked you a question, Einstein.”
He rudely shook her elbow as if pumping it would produce a response.

“I know,” she said, moving her arm
out of his reach. “Just a minute, I...I...need to think.”

 “What’s wrong with you?” Zeke
asked. “You act like I’m asking you to kill a puppy or something. What the
hell?”

“It’s just that I’m not comfortable
in dresses,” Sue said quietly, tears dripping from her cheeks.

Zeke was baffled. He gently took
Sue’s head in his hands and turned her face to his. “And that makes you cry?
We’re gonna get to the bottom of this,” he pronounced. “And right now. This is
just plumb freaky, Sue.” He stared into her eyes.

Sue broke eye contact, and looked
down.

Still Zeke gripped her head, the
pressure of his hands increasing slightly. “Give. Now.” An ominous tone crept
into his voice. “I make a simple suggestion and you go nuts on me. I want to
know why.”

“Okay.” Sue sniffed loudly.

Zeke released her head and stroked
her hair tenderly. “That’s better,” he said. “Now, why don’t you like to wear
dresses?”

“I’m too ugly to wear dresses,” she
whispered. Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear her.

To her surprise, Zeke laughed.
“Ugly? Honey, you aren’t even in the neighborhood of ugly. In fact, you can’t
even see ugly from where you are.”

She glanced up hopefully, checked
to see if he might be baiting her. But he looked sincere.

“What the hell makes you think
you’re ugly?” he asked, annoyance replaced by curiosity.

Haltingly, Sue told him about the
conversation she’d overheard between Aunt Ginger and her friend so many years
ago. Speaking about it opened the wound and the pain felt fresh again, like the
day it happened. She surprised herself as bitterness flowed from her, almost
choking her at times.

She followed the recollection with
a reminder about Mean Eugene, and then filled him in on her years of
orthodontia and the anguish that resulted from being either ignored, or
bullied, by all the boys in middle school. She was weeping by the end of her
tale, her stomach rebellious.

Zeke was quiet for a minute, his
hands drumming softly on the steering wheel. Sue sat with head hung and played
with the buttons of her jacket.

“Okay,” Zeke finally said. “I’m
gonna tell you something and it’s the god’s honest truth. Maybe you used to be
a dog, I don’t know. But you’re not now. It’s like the ugly duckling story.
Somewhere along the way, you turned into a swan, and you didn’t even realize
it. Maybe you’ll never be Miss America, but you’re one sexy chick; you’re hot.
You can drop that old poor ugly me routine now. Those days were over a long
time ago.”

Sue looked up at him doubtfully.

“Hey, I’m telling you the truth
here,” he said earnestly. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Susie.” He took her hands in
his and kissed the back of her fingers, just like a gallant gentleman would a
lady dressed in quality finery. Then he pulled out his laptop and powered up.
“I want you to see these pictures I took when you were doing Ernie.”

“Oh god! No, I don’t want to see
them.” Sue looked away.

“Yes, you do. Honey, you look so
good in these photos.” He turned her head gently and she looked at the screen.
Graphic pictures of her with her knees wide. Her with Ernie’s head between her
legs. Her with the tubby truck driver buried deep inside her. She grew warm
with embarrassment and something else. A bizarre kind of arousal.

“See?” Zeke said. “Look at you. You
look good. Oh, bunny, you can clearly see you are not ugly. You’re a hot
sensuous woman. Nothing to be ashamed of at all. So forget all those ignorant
words from your past.”

Sue said nothing.

“And forget Mean Eugene, you
watched him give some dude a BJ, remember?” Zeke joked. “He’s nothing now.”

Sue smiled weakly at Zeke’s attempt
to cheer her up. “But I feel stupid in a dress.” She closed her eyes but the
images of her in Ernie’s truck stayed there on the back of her eyelids.

“That’s all the more reason to get
you into some skirts,” he said firmly. “We have to undo that earlier
programming. The best way to do it is to just jump right in.”

“But it’s winter; my legs will get
cold,” she said in a small voice.

“No, they won’t,” Zeke countered.
“We’ll get you some long socks to keep them warm.”

“But why, Zeke? What difference
does it make what I wear?”

Zeke put a hand on her shoulder.
“The truth? I want easier access to you, honey. It’s a pain getting you out of
those tight jeans every time I want to touch you. I’m telling you, the way to
go is long skirts and no underwear. You want me to be able to love you up,
don’t you?”

“Of course.” A warm thrill washed
over her. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad wearing a skirt. It would be nice not to
have to mess with tight jeans before making love. The idea was growing on her.

“Trust me, it’s for the best,” Zeke
said, opening the door of the van. “Now, come on inside with me and we’ll pick
out some nice clothes for you.”

Sue meekly followed him.

“You need to realize that I have
your best interests in mind,” he informed her over his shoulder. “Once you
accept that, it’ll make things easier on us both.”

Sue stopped for a minute, trying to
grasp the notion, finding it wrong somehow, but unable to think why. Zeke
stopped too and walked back to where she was standing. He took her hand and led
her inside where he chose several long skirts and a bundle of knee socks.
Looking her over with his chin in his hand, Zeke moved to another rack and ran
his fingers over the garments. Finally, he pulled something off a hanger and
handed it to Sue. It was a shiny peach-colored, mid-length coat with a hood.
Although not overly thick, Sue knew it would be much warmer than her jacket.
She felt an inner glow at his thoughtful gesture. It proved Zeke cared enough
about her to consider her comfort.

They stood at the register, Zeke
looking at Sue expectantly.

“Oh!” She opened her purse and paid
from her dwindling cash supply. It looked like she would be wearing skirts from
now on. She assured herself she’d look very Bohemian and cutting-edge, and
tried to ignore her discomfiture.
Zeke thinks I’m beautiful, and that’s all
that matters.

 
“Let’s stop and pick
up some beer and sodas on the way out of town,” Zeke suggested. “I told you
we’d be just like gypsies; we’ll have everything we need with us. Isn’t that
right, Sue?”

Sue smiled in agreement.

Big Wet Stain

“I’m taking off from here,”
Falstaff told Roxie as he updated her by phone from the convenience store
parking lot. “I’ll be going southwest on Highway 46. Melvin’s on his way back
to the office. Give me a call if you find anything interesting.”

“What about your clothes and
things?” she asked.

“Packed them last night and stuck
them in the trunk.”

“Smart thinking,” she complimented
him. “I’ll look for anything of interest that lies along your path, and I’ll
get Melvin on the abandoned building angle. Of course, that could have been
just another lie. I’ll let you know what we come up with.”

Will hung up and settled in for
what might prove to be a long drive. He didn’t think the couple would have stopped
too often at the beginning of the trip. Just a gut feeling. But they would have
to get gas and food sometime. Around one o’clock, he stopped for lunch in Clear
Lake, a small town with only one restaurant. The waitress didn’t recognize the
picture of Sue, and Will requested his meal to go.

He started paying attention to any
place with a gas pump once he got down to half a tank. He lost valuable time
interviewing employees of convenience stores and service stations, frustrating
but unavoidable. No one recalled seeing the couple.

His phone rang and he pulled over
on a narrow shoulder to take the call. Roxie had come across two reports of
interest, both break-ins. One at a tire store and one at a residence. The
residential one triggered his suspicions. He made notes and pulled back onto
the road. At the next junction, he took the exit to Calcus, New Hampshire.
There he spoke to the manager of Ray’s Tires & Tubes who had reported the
theft. The tire store turned out to be a waste of effort. The fence had been
cut, four wide tires stolen, and graffiti smeared all over the side of the
building. No one saw anything, and the tires would never fit a van. He spent
very little time there.

His next stop was at a convenience
store, where once again, the clerk didn’t recognize Sue’s picture or Zeke by
description.

The home burglary from his list
felt more plausible, so he continued south to Assaria, planning to interview a
woman named Doris Bernard about the break-in at her home. Along the way, he
stopped at almost every diner and gas station, but learned nothing.

Later that afternoon, Will pulled
into Assaria and stopped at a small park to update Roxie. She had more info on
the home break-in. “It seems Zeke pulled some of the oldest tricks in the book
to take advantage of a lonely woman,” Roxie said and explained what happened.
She gave Will the phone number for the dollar store, and then reported on
Melvin’s progress. “He’s come up with some locations of abandoned buildings
strung out along your general route. Some of them may be promising.”

Will thanked her and jotted down
some notes before calling Doris. She agreed to meet him outside her workplace,
and he arrived at the curb just in time to see her poke her head out the door,
looking for him. Signaling her, he popped the lock on the passenger door and Doris
got in, eager to talk about her experience. These types never learn.

“I’ve never felt such a sense of
violation,” she told Will. She described the choking incident in the store and
the subsequent phone call in which she had foolishly given the burglars her
address. Will shook his head sympathetically as he wrote.

“I was used.” She bemoaned her ill
treatment. “But I believe in my heart of hearts, it was that girl behind the
whole thing.”

Will blinked, surprised at this
statement. “Why do you think that, Miss Bernard?”

“Well, you’d just have to meet
Luther to understand,” she went on. “He was so charming! He just wasn’t the
criminal type. He was really very sweet. I think his sister was the evil one,
like Eve causing trouble for Adam, talking him into bad things.”

“I see,” Will said, his tone
encouraging. “Tell me about the break-in.”

“Well, they took eight
hundred-forty dollars I was saving for a new sofa; but they left all my credit
cards. Probably knew they’d get caught using them. And, I found an empty hair
dye box in my bathroom. It came from our store. That girl had to have stolen it
while her poor brother was choking to death!” Doris was irate. “She acted all
worried when she came to the front of the store after stealing us blind; but I
could see right through her. She was trouble, with capital letters.”

“Okay,” Will prompted. “What else?”

“The police said they used some
kind of huntin’ knife to pry open the back door. And then, they ate lunch, calm
as you please, right at my kitchen table. They didn’t even clean up after
themselves.” She listed their crimes, which included taking her food, stealing
her blankets, using her shower, and leaving drops of black hair dye on her
bathroom floor, splattered on her sink, and all over her robe. “I’ll never get
those stains out of my bathroom, you know. They’re permanent. And my best
housecoat is ruined, too.” Doris scowled, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster
hoarding treats. She rearranged herself in the seat, pulling her large purse
close to her bosom. “Some of those quilts they took are irreplaceable. They
belonged to my mother before she passed the house on to me. The insurance money
won’t begin to cover the emotional damage I suffered, either.” She shook her
head, jowls wiggling like pudding. She almost decided to omit the prescription
medicine stolen from her bathroom, thinking her nervous problems were no one’s
business; then she had second thoughts. “That girl must be into drugs, too.”