CHEAP SUITCASE AND A NEW TOWN

by Chris Offutt

Lucedale

Betsy had been raised to hold grudges forever, but long ago realized it required more effort than she cared to exert. She remembered the very moment when she’d understood that forgiveness had nothing to do with an adversary, but would benefit solely herself. Her entire worldview had shifted, like discovering her house contained a new room full of light, a chamber she wanted to occupy forever.

Ten months before, Betsy had moved to Lucedale and found work in a breakfast café, becoming the very person she detested most—a woman in a shapeless uniform serving eggs to workingmen, the oldest waitress in the place, alone and not wanting to be, living in a dump and drinking herself to sleep. She was not yet forty. She thought she should know better and felt worse for it.

An eighteen-year-old girl named Thadine joined the breakfast crew. Betsy envied her youth and vitality, the cheery optimism, her slim hips twitching among the tables. Betsy had been the same as Thadine twenty years earlier in another town and had progressed nowhere. Worse, Thadine actively sought Betsy’s attention, craving approval, trailing behind her like a pup who’d been kicked but never with severity.

During the midmorning lull before lunch, their side work included refilling salt and pepper shakers, marrying half-empty ketchup bottles, and topping off the sugar containers. Thadine chattered about inconsequential subjects, a running narrative of what lay immediately before her, a commentary on the obvious. Occasionally she tested safe opinions. She laughed readily. The boss liked her and the cooks strove to conceal her errors. In another context, Betsy might have found her adorable—slight and needy in old loafers—but Betsy was reminded of all that she herself had lost: everyone she’d ever loved, a familiar landscape, the security of deep belonging, but most of all the naïveté of seeing life as fraught with promise.

For two weeks the girl had gotten on Betsy’s nerves. Fed up, her voice hard, Betsy finally said, “Get away from me. I’m your coworker, not your friend.”

Thadine’s face turned red as if she’d been slapped. Her eyes, formerly as brimful of hope as an egg is of yolk, filled with tears. She hurried to the kitchen and Betsy ignored her during the rest of the shift, grateful for the efficiency of working alone. She counted her tips at the Formica breakfast bar, cashed her change into folding money, and left.

The incessant heat pressed against Betsy as if she’d stepped into the sea. Though mid-September, there was little autumn to behold. In the parking lot Thadine was leaning against Betsy’s car, her face downcast.

“Why do you hate me?” Thadine said. “I only want to be like you.”

Betsy’s knees seemed to give, as if the struts that held her upright had become elastic. Her polyester uniform clung to her skin, smelling of bacon, stained along the perimeter of her apron. She was tired. Perspiration sheened her face. This was the girl’s hometown. She no doubt wanted out, same as Betsy had wanted out of her own. It never occurred to Betsy that seeing her young self in Thadine was a two-way enterprise. Thadine’s life must feel drastic for Betsy’s to appear worthy of emulation.

The unforeseen arrival of forgiveness relieved Betsy of a burden she didn’t know she carried, an invisible shawl of stone. She’d felt the burn of betrayal many times—lied to, taken advantage of, abandoned—left alone with the numb opacity of loss. But she had done her share of hurting people too. It all worked out in the end. The balance of life was achieved by weighted extremes. She had no appetite for moderation, no patience for people who did.

With the stunning clarity of sunup after a fierce storm, Betsy realized that her life wasn’t a case of failing to learn from her mistakes, but one of repeating the same patterns again and again. Waitress shoes, a narrow bed, a damaged man. A cheap suitcase and a new town. She wanted to warn the girl, to give her advice Betsy had never received: Don’t let them hit you, don’t drink on an empty stomach, don’t cry alone. But Betsy knew it wouldn’t have done her younger self any good to hear it, no more than it would for Thadine.

Only two things ever helped in life—love and money. Any love Betsy could muster was reserved for the next reckless man, not this waif weeping in the harsh light. She offered the day’s tips.

“You’re wrong,” Betsy said. “I don’t hate you.”

Thadine started to speak, then didn’t. She took the cash.

“You hate this town,” Betsy said. “Get out before you hate yourself.”

She got in her car and drove past a fancy house with a large expanse of grass, automatically watered at night. The grass didn’t actually grow, but had been unfurled from trucks and pressed into place. Few people trod upon the slim shards of yard.

A mile farther she entered her own neighborhood of cement and asphalt, a used-car lot and front yards of weed and dirt. Betsy parked and climbed an exterior staircase composed of premade concrete to her one-room apartment. She removed her greasy waitress smock and cursed herself for the day’s work with nothing to show. What kind of life was she leading? What kind of name was Thadine?

The last time she lived in a house had been in Alabama. She’d gotten mixed up with a man who’d spent three years hand-building a stone enclosure of water for koi fish. He was proud of his project, which Betsy considered a lot of work simply to maintain overgrown carp. In the afternoons they drank beside the pool. He liked to talk and she didn’t like to be alone. He fired a BB pistol at neighborhood cats that skulked about, attempting to prey on his fish. Betsy asked him to stop and he set wire traps instead. One trap caught a gopher, which drew a coyote that ate all his precious koi. He blamed Betsy. She left him and quit living in houses, returning to single rooms.

In her apartment, she poured vodka and drank it, facing a fan in her underwear. The AC was a window unit that didn’t actually cool the air, just barely cut the heat and blew dust that made her sneeze. After two drinks she laughed at herself—she’d gone from saving cats in Alabama to giving her money away in Mississippi. She closed her eyes. Awhile later she awoke disoriented from a dream she’d had consistently since childhood—lost in a vast house, wandering long halls, opening doors and encountering people she’d met in different places. They were quite friendly with each other, but ignored her as if she was a ghost. She ran down a long hall, trying to ward away the awareness that something serious was amiss.

Betsy sat in the chair, blinking herself fully awake until the imagery faded. Each time she had the dream, the house was bigger, as if her continued existence furthered its renovation. After a shower she ate leftover food from the refrigerator. She packed her clothes, loaded the car, and left for New Orleans.

Each time she began a new life she momentarily wished she had a pistol, a small one. She didn’t know why. She supposed it was about confidence and fear. If she’d bought one, she’d have pawned it by now. Someone else would own it, and no telling what they’d do with it, who they’d shoot, maybe Thadine. Betsy hoped the girl would get out before someone did. It could happen easily. Anything could.