The Middle Ground Page 4

  I folded up the paper. I put my phone away and decided to wait to tell Jackie everything.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When I pulled up in front of the house, it was dark. I found the living room covered in my favorite flowers: daisies, sunflowers and roses. In the middle of the kitchen table was a letter from Dale, in his impossible-to-understand scribble. I crumpled it up and stuffed it in my purse. I was relieved to see that he cared, that he was trying. But I was still too mad to read it. The answering machine was blinking endlessly on the counter. Fourteen messages, mostly from Dale, my mother and my sister. Where was I? Why wasn’t I picking up my cell? But there were also a couple asking for radio interviews, one from a newspaper journalist requesting a quote, and one from someone “checking facts and spellings.” Finally there was one from Julia, a worker from County Victim and Witness Services. If I needed any advice or support, I could call her. Hadn’t anything else newsworthy happened yet? I erased them all.

  I gathered up all the flowers into an oversized clear garbage bag and put it in front of the door so Dale would trip on it in the morning.

  I couldn’t face our bedroom, so I crept downstairs into Mike’s room. Mike, who had no idea his family was imploding as he hiked through the wilderness.

  I turned on his computer and logged into my Facebook account, something I’d used to keep in touch with friends from high school who had moved away. I loved it for a while, seeing everyone’s baby photos and the details of their lives. Then it got to be a pain. Like a party you can’t just leave when you’re bored. In the search box, I typed Roger’s full name. He didn’t seem like the type, but you never know, right?

  I was a bit surprised when his profile popped up almost immediately. It turned out he lived not too far away. His photo was a bit blurry, a distant shot of someone who could be him walking with a German shepherd. Unlike a lot of my friends, he didn’t keep his profile private.

  He listed his likes as hair metal, Nirvana and old-school metal and punk. This made sense with the punk rock T-shirt he’d been wearing. Also skateboarding, tattoos, horses and dogs. His favorite movie was Bandits (the irony!). His favorite quote: “Be the Type of Person Your Dog Thinks You Are” and “Death Before Dishonor.” That clinched it. All of his wall postings were out of date, but about six months previously there were a rash of postings from some of his forty-seven friends.

  Man, I’m so sorry for your loss.

  Call me if you need anything, or need us to take care of Trisha for a while.

  We’re here for you.

  I love you, Rog. You can count on us during this difficult time.

  I hope that fucker fries.

  It appeared Roger hadn’t logged in for about six months, after something major went down. It had me so curious. And so much more sympathetic.

  I went upstairs and packed up a small bag with pajamas, a cosmetics case and an outfit for the morning. I stripped the bed and put the sheets in the wash, knowing this would confound Dale and he’d end up sleeping on a bare mattress and be pissed off. I picked up the phone to call Jackie while I organized.

  “Hey, what a perfect time to finally call me back…at one in the freaking morning.”

  “I’m sorry, Jacks. I have to stay at your place, okay? I can’t be here.”

  “I know. Mom told me.”

  “How the fuck does Mom know?”

  “You know she’s all-knowing.”

  “Dale must have called her. Can’t I have even a bit of privacy?”

  “She thinks you should—”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinions.”

  “Well, whatever. I’ll go open the back door and pull out the couch in the basement. Stay as long as you want. Make the dirtbag suffer.”

  Since Jackie’s first experience with a boy was the attack by Jerry, she had never developed any patience for men. Her husband was meek and did everything she said. He wouldn’t even kill a spider.

  Once at Jackie’s, I curled up under an orange afghan and stared at the rows of track-and-field trophies from her youth. A photo from our wedding day in a bronze frame was on the wall. I pulled it from its nail and put it face down on top of some old VHS tapes.

  I only slept for maybe two hours. I kept thinking of Dale, a confusing mix of anger, hurt and loneliness. It made me even madder that I felt this need for him, even though I was so angry. I can’t even be angry right!

  I woke early and showered in the downstairs stall. I put on my other good dress. A short black number Jackie helped me pick out years ago. She had taken me with her to the city for an art opening. Back when she was still trying to make a go of her sculptor career.

  In the dim bathroom mirror I applied eye shadow and some cover-up over the slight bruise that had appeared on my neck. The memory of that violence turned my stomach, but, I reasoned, he didn’t know me then. He was desperate. Who knows what I’d do if I were ever desperate like that.

  I matched the dress with a pair of Jackie’s heeled boots from the alcove.

  “Going job hunting,” I mumbled to Jackie as she struggled to feed one of her early day-care kids at the kitchen table.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  When I got in the car, I felt the thrill of having a secret and knowing that Dale was likely worried. My anger still surged, and I wanted him to wonder. I wanted to make him worry. I wanted him to understand that maybe his wife wouldn’t wait around for him this time.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The diner was the kind of place my father would’ve secretly taken us kids to when we were young. My mother would’ve thought it was trashy. But if she was at one of her church meetings and Dad didn’t want to cook, off we’d go. He’d have ordered the steak and hash and told us stories about the farm he grew up on out west. We’d have fish and chips and chocolate cake. In the car on the way home he’d prep us.

  “What do you say when your mother asks what you ate?”

  “Broccoli!” we’d yell in unison, our faces smeared with chocolate.

  I arrived early and sat in one of the back booths. I checked the exits and set my phone to ring in fifteen minutes, just in case. The booths had paper placemats with the menus printed on them. The ketchup dispensers looked about a hundred years old. A poster on the wall advertised The Best Mashed Potatoes in the State! A pat of butter melting on a mound of mash. Some claim to fame.

  Most of the customers looked like truckers. There were a couple of weary-looking moms with their kids. Near the front entrance two teenagers in Slayer shirts were plugging quarters into an ancient arcade game. A girl in tight pink sweatpants stood at one machine, trying to pick up a stuffed animal with a metal claw. The one where the odds are heavily stacked against that ever happening.

  “Fucking bullshit,” she kept saying, kicking the machine with the toe of her white cowboy boots. More quarters in. The sound of the claw. “Fucking bullshit,” again.

  I ordered an iced tea with lemon. When I got tired of watching the girl lose her money, I began to thumb through a magazine I’d borrowed from Jackie’s bathroom. Modern Woman’s Daily. I was halfway through “Ten Ways to Keep a Man Happy” when Roger slid onto the bench across from me.

  “Hi, Missy,” he said quietly. He’d cleaned up, shaved. He was wearing a bright white T-shirt and jeans. He looked even younger, almost humble.

  “Hi,” I said shyly, immediately wondering why I’d come. What were my reasons? Everything felt so uncertain.

  The waitress broke the tension. “Hey, stranger!” she greeted him, placing her hand on his shoulder for a friendly squeeze. “The usual?”

  “Thanks, Sam,” he said.

  She soon returned with a cup of coffee.

  He ordered breakfast. When she spoke to me, I could barely find a voice to speak back. I hadn’t even thought about eating in all the time I’d been sitting there. I looked at the wall behind Red. “Mashed potatoes,” I said, as if possessed by the spirit of some hungry pothead.

  She squeezed Red’s shoulder again and t
ousled his hair like he was eight. It occurred to me that she wouldn’t likely be so friendly if she’d seen him pointing a gun at a fellow coffee-slinger the day before. He emptied three containers of cream into the small white cup, stirring it slowly with a spoon. Finally he cleared his throat.

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Why, why do you want to?” I wasn’t going to let him off that easy. What was he really sorry about?

  “I’m not a criminal.”

  “You’re in some kind of denial.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “You pointed a gun at me. Case in point: criminal. I mean, I don’t have a dictionary on me or anything, but I’m pretty sure you fit the definition.”

  “What I mean is that I have a conscience, right? I would never hurt anyone.”

  “But you did. You hurt me. You hurt Christina. Just because we don’t have holes in our chests doesn’t mean you should get a big prize or something.”

  I moved my hair off my neck and pointed to the bruise. Red looked down at the table. He put his head in his hands. A few seconds passed, and he shifted in his seat.

  “This isn’t going the way I expected it to go,” he said. He looked up, stirred his coffee again. “I thought you wanted to meet me.”

  “I did. There’s something about you. You make me curious.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I’ve never met a criminal.”

  He took a big sip of his coffee. “I’m changing.”

  “You said that in your note.”

  The waitress arrived with his plate of scrambled eggs and my mashed potatoes. “But words are just words, right? Actions matter.”

  “Odd thing to have for breakfast.” He nodded in the direction of my plate.

  “Apparently they’re the best in the state,” I said.

  “Just an old sign,” he said.

  They tasted like boxed taters. I dotted them with hot sauce and swirled them around my plate. Cotton candy. I put my fork down and pushed the plate away.

  “How are you changing?”

  “I want to be someone my daughter can be proud of.”

  “I understand wanting that. I have a son.”

  “I’ve already lost the respect of her brother. He’s thirteen now, but he may as well be thirty.”

  “Thirteen is a crucial age. They still need you, you know.”

  “With him, it’s complicated.”

  We ate for a few moments in silence. I noticed he ate everything in sections, didn’t let the eggs touch the toast or the toast touch the bacon.

  “So, why did you rob Callie’s?”

  “That is also complicated.”

  “Try me.”

  * * *

  Red proceeded to tell me his whole sorry story. His rocky childhood. His life-changing trip working in the northern woods. How he met his wife. All things I could understand, could picture perfectly. And then the story got stranger, and sadder, and hard to believe.

  “So, that’s that in a nutshell. You now know more about me than most people in my family.”

  “Why did you trust me to tell me all that?”

  “I’m not sure. Something inside me told me you were special and I could trust you.”

  “What does special mean? That sounds like something women want to hear but means absolutely nothing.”

  “See? You’re tough. You won’t let me off the hook for anything, I bet. Just like my ex-wife.”

  “Yeah, I’m tough,” I said. I tried on the world like a sweater. A new style. Sure, Missy Turner, the new version, could be tough.

  “So, tell your story.”

  “My story was really boring until yesterday.”

  “How so?”

  “I was happily married for fifteen years.”

  “Good lord, you look so much younger.”

  “I got married at seventeen.”

  “Oh.”

  “And yesterday I got laid off from my job, came home and found my husband in the arms of the next-door neighbor.” I described what had happened. How I’d gasped and dropped the coffee on the floor. Lydia, perfect tits and all, was sitting on Dale’s lap, rubbing them in his face. He looked over her shoulder and pushed her off. They both looked at me like scared dogs. She leapt up and ran out the back door.

  “Missy! What are you doing here?” Dale had yelped. “Let me explain.”

  “I’d like to hear you even try.”

  “Baby, it’s not like that.”

  “I came home because I got laid off today, Dale. And now I find out my husband’s a liar? Nice. Great fucking day!” I’d picked up a coffee cup from the counter and threw it at the clock on the wall. They’d both shattered.

  I’d turned and run outside. Just in time to see Lydia disappear through her front door. I got in my car and locked all the doors. I sat perfectly still, tears streaming down my face, while Dale pounded on the hood, yelling variations on “I’m Sorry.” Suddenly my world looked different. The sad yard with the drooping begonias. The Rose of Sharon bush that needed trimming. The sagging curtains in the kitchen window that I’d been meaning to fix.

  Dale too. With his growing beer gut protruding from his faded Soundgarden Tour T-shirt, his old pair of jogging pants, his slightly receding hairline. He’d finally stopped yelling. Now he was desperately staring into the front window, hands raised in a mock prayer. He’d looked repulsive. I’d started the car and backed out of the driveway. Once in the street, I stopped long enough to open the passenger-side window.

  “You fucking disgust me,” I’d yelled.

  “And he did,” I said to Red. “He absolutely disgusted me.”

  “He sounds like he’s not worth your time.”

  “Well, we’ve been married fifteen years. It’s not like he’s some bag of chips I’m done eating.”

  “Well, you can’t stay with him.”

  “You have a pretty good sense of right and wrong for someone who uses guns to make a point.”

  Red was quiet. For a moment I worried he’d lunge at me. Or get up and leave. But he took a long sip of his coffee and broke into a half smile. “Point taken.”

  “He wrote me a letter. I haven’t even read it yet. I still have it in my purse.”

  “Read it to me.”

  For some reason, after Red had just bared his soul to me, I decided, why the hell not.

  The letter was terribly written. It overemphasized how sorry he was. How the thing with Lydia was short-lived and just about sex. We’d been in a rut lately, and he wanted to feel special again. And it was just one time. Lydia wasn’t half as beautiful or smart as I was. It was the biggest mistake of his life. How he’d only ever been with me. He’d been so young when we got married. After all these years he was curious about other women. But it hadn’t meant anything. I’m the only thing that meant anything. Blah, blah, blah… Three pages essentially saying the same thing over and over.

  “What I don’t understand is that if he was so curious about other women and wanted to experiment, why be so uncreative and choose the tramp next door?”

  Red smiled. “Men are essentially assholes. And lazy.”

  “Whatever. That’s just an excuse. How can all of one group be the same way? Women certainly can’t agree on much.”

  “Yeah, but there’s something to the idea that men will try to get away with what they can…sometimes. But some of us can change. I’m trying. You’re my inspiration.”

  “You just met me. That’s such a line.”

  “It’s the god’s honest truth.”

  “Well, at least I’m something to someone, right?” Until I formed those words, I had no idea how lonely I felt.

  I pictured Dale on the days he’d make me dinner—lasagna, meatloaf or vaguely awkward pad thai. He’d rub my shoulders after he placed the plate in front of me, smiling like he should be given a medal for cooking a meal. There was something endearing about him, and infuriating at the same time. I missed him so much at that moment I could hardly speak.r />
  Sam arrived to ask if we’d like the bill.

  “I’ll have a beer and a shot of whiskey,” I said.

  Red looked surprised. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At one o’clock, we were still sitting in the diner. The better part of a pitcher of watery beer sat between us. I suppose it had something to do with the way we met, but neither of us were shy. We laid it out on the table, so to speak.

  “I just don’t know what to do with my life now,” I said. “I don’t feel like I can just go back. Too much has changed.”

  “I know I can’t. I just want to make a new life for myself.” Red appeared energized by the new possibilities.

  “If only it were easy to make big changes. There’s a part of me that wants to go back to Dale and our house. And just wait for Mike to come home next month. Pretend nothing happened at all. It’s the only thing I know. It’s so comfortable, right?”

  Roger shrugged. “Nothing has felt comfortable for a long time.”

  “Where could I go?” I felt like spinning a globe and pointing down anywhere, the way they do in adventure stories. “I could take a trip. By myself.”

  “I have a brother in New York City,” he said. “We could take a trip together. Stay with him for a few days. You could rest, get some perspective.”

  I looked into the bottom of my pint glass and felt dizzy. Suddenly I was free as a bird, at least for six weeks. No job, my son away. A husband I couldn’t bear to look at. I could be anyone. I had a savings account. I’d been squirreling away funds for an emergency for the past eight years. Maybe this was one.