“I’m serious, Geri. Remember to salt the rim this time.” She turned back to me. “So hard to get good help these days,” she muttered earnestly, unaware no one really says that who’s not on TV. I’m sure Jackie watched TV nonstop, drink in one hand, remote control in the other, curtains pulled as morning talk shows yielded to soaps, glided into court TV, moved on to reruns, sitcoms, crime dramas, and late-night movies about women who were raped, stalked, betrayed, or killed.
Geri brought in the Bloodys on a tray, along with containers of celery, pickles, and olives, and, as instructed, closed the drapes and left. Jackie and I sat in the dim light, in the freezing air-conditioned white room, and stared at each other a few seconds. Then Jackie swooped down and pulled out the drawer of the coffee table. It held three bottles of nail polish, a ratty Bible, and more than half a dozen orange prescription bottles. I thought of Curry and his clipped rose thorns.
“Painkiller? I got some good ones.”
“I should probably keep some of my wits about me,” I said, not quite sure if she was serious. “Looks like you could almost start your own store there.”
“Oh sure. I’m terribly lucky.” I could smell her anger mixed with tomato juice. “OxyContin, Percocet, Percodan, whatever new pill my latest doctor has stock in. But I got to admit, they’re fun.” She poured a few round white tablets into her hand and shot them back, smiled at me.
“What do you have?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“That’s the best part, sweetie. No one fucking knows. Lupus says one, arthritis says another, some sort of autoimmune syndrome says a third, it’s all in my head says the fourth and fifth.”
“What do you think?”
“What do I think?” she asked, and rolled her eyes. “I think as long as they keep the meds coming, I probably don’t care all that much.” She laughed again. “They’re really fun.”
Whether she was putting on a brave face or was really addicted, I couldn’t tell.
“I’m sort of surprised Adora hasn’t gotten herself on the sick track,” she leered. “Figured once I did, she’d have to up the stakes, right? She wouldn’t have silly old lupus, though. She’d find a way to get…I don’t know, brain cancer. Right?”
She took another sip of the Bloody Mary, got a slash of red and salt across her upper lip, which made her look swollen. That second swallow calmed her, and just as she had at Natalie’s funeral, she stared at me like she was trying to memorize my face.
“Good God, it’s so weird to see you grown up,” she said, patting my knee. “Why are you here, sweetheart? Is everything okay at home? Probably not. Is it…is it your momma?”
“No, nothing like that.” I hated being so obvious.
“Oh.” She looked dismayed, a hand fluttering to her robe like something out of a black-and-white movie. I’d played her wrong, forgot that down here it was encouraged to openly crave gossip.
“I mean, I’m sorry, I wasn’t being frank just now. I do want to talk about my mother.”
Jackie immediately cheered. “Can’t quite figure her out, huh? Angel or devil or both, right?” Jackie placed a green satin pillow under her tiny rump and aimed her feet onto my lap. “Sweepea, will you just rub a little? They’re clean.” From under the sofa she pulled a bag of mini–candy bars, the kind you give out at Halloween, and placed them on her belly. “Lord, I’m going to have to get rid of these later, but they’ll taste good going down.”
I took advantage of this happy moment. “Was my mother always…the way she is now?” I cringed at the awkwardness of the question, but Jackie cackled once, like a witch.
“What’s that, Sweepea—Beautiful? Charming? Beloved? Evil?” She wiggled her toes as she unwrapped a chocolate. “Rub.” I began kneading her cold feet, the soles rough like a turtle shell. “Adora. Well, damn. Adora was rich and beautiful and her crazy parents ran the town. They brought that damn hog farm to Wind Gap, gave us hundreds of jobs—there was a walnut plant then, too. They called the shots. Everyone bootlicked the Preakers.”
“What was life for her like…at home?”
“Adora was…overly mothered. Never saw your grandma Joya smile at her or touch her in a loving way, but she couldn’t keep her hands off her. Always fixing the hair, tugging at clothes, and…oh, she did this thing. Instead of licking her thumb and rubbing at a smudge, she’d lick Adora. Just grab her head and lick it. When Adora peeled from a sunburn—we all did back then, not as smart about SPF as your generation—Joya would sit next to your momma, strip off her shirt, and peel the skin off in long strips. Joya loved that.”
“Jackie…”
“I am not lying. Having to watch your friend stripped naked in front of you, and…groomed. Needless to say, your momma was sick all the time. She was always having tubes and needles and such stuck in her.”
“What was she sick with?”
“Little bit of everything. Lot of it just the stress of living with Joya. Those long unpainted fingernails, like a man’s. And long hair she let go silver, down her back.”
“Where was my grandfather in all this?”
“Don’t know. Don’t even remember his name. Herbert? Herman? He was never around, and when he was, he was just quiet and…away. You know the type. Like Alan.”
She popped another chocolate and wiggled her toes in my hands. “You know, having you should have ruined your mother.” Her tone was reproachful, as if I’d failed a simple chore. “Any other girl, got knocked up before marriage, here in Wind Gap way back when, it’d be all over for her,” Jackie continued. “But your mother always had a way of making people baby her. People—not just boys, but the girls, their mothers, the teachers.”
“Why is that?”
“Sweet Camille, a beautiful girl can get away with anything if she plays nice. You certainly must know that. Think of all the things boys have done for you over the years they never would have done if you hadn’t had that face. And if the boys are nice, the girls are nice. Adora played that pregnancy beautifully: proud but a little broken, and very secretive. Your daddy came for that fateful visit, and then they never saw each other again. Your momma never spoke about it. You were all hers from the beginning. That’s what killed Joya. Her daughter finally had something in her that Joya couldn’t get at.”
“Did my mother stop being sick once Joya was gone?”
“She did okay for a while,” Jackie said over her glass. “But wasn’t that long before Marian came along, and she didn’t really have time to be sick then.”
“Was my mother…” I could feel a sob welling up in my throat, so I swallowed it with my watered-down vodka. “Was my mother…a nice person?”
Jackie cackled again. Popped a chocolate, the nougat sticking to her teeth. “That’s what you’re after? Whether she was nice?” she paused. “What do you think?” she added, mocking me.
Jackie dug into her drawer again, unscrewed three pill bottles, took a tablet from each, and arranged them from largest to smallest on the back of her left hand.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been close with her.”
“But you’ve been close to her. Don’t play games with me, Camille. That exhausts me. If you thought your momma was a nice person, you wouldn’t be over here with her best friend asking whether she’s nice.”
Jackie took each pill, largest to smallest, smashed it into a chocolate, and swallowed it. Wrappers littered her chest, the smear of red still covered her lip, and a thick fudgy coating clung to her teeth. Her feet had begun to sweat in my hands.
“I’m sorry. You’re right,” I said. “Just, do you think she’s…sick?”
Jackie stopped her chewing, put her hand on mine, and took a sigh of a breath.
“Let me say it aloud, because I’ve been thinking it too long, and thoughts can be a little tricky for me—they zip away from you, you know. Like trying to catch fish with your hands.” She leaned up and squeezed my arm. “Adora devours you, and if you don’t let her, it’ll be even worse for you. Look it what’s happening to Amma. Look at what happened to Marian.”
Yes. Just below my left breast, bundle began tingling.
“So you think?” I prompted. Say it.
“I think she’s sick, and I think what she has is contagious,” Jackie whispered, her shaky hands making the ice in her glass chime. “And I think it’s time for you to go, Sweepea.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstay my welcome.”
“I mean leave Wind Gap. It’s not safe for you here.”
Less than a minute later I closed the door on Jackie as she stared at the photo of herself leering back from the mantelpiece.
Chapter Fourteen
I nearly tumbled down Jackie’s steps, my legs were so wobbly. Behind my back I could hear her boys chanting the Calhoon football rally. I drove around the corner, parked under a copse of mulberry treees, and rested my head against the wheel.
Had my mother truly been sick? And Marian? Amma and me? Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed. Not surprising, considering the sheer amount of traffic a woman’s body experiences. Tampons and speculums. Cocks, fingers, vibrators and more, between the legs, from behind, in the mouth. Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? Cucumbers and bananas and bottles, a string of pearls, a Magic Marker, a fist. Once a guy wanted to wedge a Walkie-Talkie inside of me. I declined.
Sick and sicker and sickest. What was real and what was fake? Was Amma really sick and needing my mother’s medicine, or was the medicine what was making Amma sick? Did her blue pill make me vomit, or did it keep me from getting more ill than I’d have been without it?
Would Marian be dead if she hadn’t had Adora for a mother?
I knew I should call Richard but couldn’t think of anything to tell him. I’m scared. I’m vindicated. I want to die. I drove back past my mother’s house, then east out toward the hog farm, and pulled up to Heelah’s, that comforting, windowless block of a bar where anyone who recognized the boss’s daughter would wisely leave her to her thoughts.
The place stank of pig blood and urine; even the popcorn in bowls along the bar smelled of flesh. A couple of men in baseball caps and leather jackets, handlebar mustaches and scowls, looked up, then back down into their beers. The bartender poured me my bourbon without a word. A Carole King song droned from the speakers. On my second round, the bartender motioned behind me and asked, “You lookin’ for him?”
John Keene sat slumped over a drink in the bar’s only booth, picking at the splintered edge of the table. His white skin was mottled pink with liquor, and from his wet lips and the way he smacked his tongue, I guessed he’d vomited once already. I grabbed my drink and sat across from him, said nothing. He smiled at me, reached his hand to mine across the table.
“Hi Camille. How’re you doing? You look so nice and clean.” He looked around. “It’s…it’s so dirty here.”
“I’m doing okay, I guess, John. You okay?”
“Oh sure, I’m great. My sister’s murdered, I’m about to be arrested, and my girlfriend who’s stuck to me like glue since I moved to this rotten town is starting to realize I’m not the prize anymore. Not that I care that much. She’s nice but not…”
“Not surprising,” I offered.
“Yeah. Yeah. I was about to break up with her before Natalie. Now I can’t.”
Such a move would be dissected by the whole town—Richard, too. What does it mean? How does it prove his guilt?
“I will not go back to my parents’ house,” he muttered. “I will go to the fucking woods and kill myself before I go back to all of Natalie’s things staring at me.”
“I don’t blame you.”
He picked up the salt shaker, began twirling it around the table.
“You’re the only person who understands, I think,” he said. “What it’s like to lose a sister and be expected to just deal. Just move on. Have you gotten over it?” He said the words so bitterly I expected his tongue to turn yellow.
“You’ll never get over it,” I said. “It infects you. It ruined me.” It felt good to say it out loud.
“Why does everyone think it’s so strange that I should mourn Natalie?” John toppled the shaker and it clattered to the floor. The bartender sent over a disgruntled look. I picked it up, set it on my side of the table, threw a pinch of salt over my shoulder for both of us.
“I guess when you’re young, people expect you to accept things more easily,” I said. “And you’re a guy. Guys don’t have soft feelings.”
He snorted. “My parents got me this book on dealing with death: Male in Mourning. It said that sometimes you need to drop out, to just deny. That denial can be good for men. So I tried to take an hour and pretend like I didn’t care. And for a little bit, I really didn’t. I sat in my room at Meredith’s and I thought about…bullshit. I just stared out the window at this little square of blue sky and kept saying, It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Like I was a kid again. And when I was done, I knew for sure nothing would ever be okay again. Even if they caught who did it, it wouldn’t be okay. I don’t know why everyone keeps saying we’ll feel better once someone’s arrested. Now it looks like the someone who’s going to be arrested is me.” He laughed in a grunt and shook his head. “It’s just fucking insane.” And then, abruptly: “You want another drink? Will you have another drink with me?”
He was smashed, swaying heavily, but I would never steer a fellow sufferer from the relief of a blackout. Sometimes that’s the most logical route. I’ve always believed clear-eyed sobriety was for the harder hearted. I had a shot at the bar to catch up, then came back with two bourbons. Mine a double.
“It’s like they picked the two girls in Wind Gap who had minds of their own and killed them off,” John said. He took a sip of bourbon. “Do you think your sister and my sister would have been friends?”
In that imaginary place where they were both alive, where Marian had never aged.
“No,” I said, and laughed suddenly. He laughed, too.
“So your dead sister is too good for my dead sister?” he blurted. We both laughed again, and then quickly soured and turned back to our drinks. I was already feeling dazed.
“I didn’t kill Natalie,” he whispered.
“I know.”
He picked up my hand, wrapped it around his.
“Her fingernails were painted. When they found her. Someone painted her fingernails,” he mumbled.
