ten

I dreamed that Bing was a giant cockroach, and he mistook the Spencer-Jackson House for a petit four. I awoke at dawn, clawing air, thinking I was trapped on a layer of raspberry jelly.

Then I realized the pinkness was coming from the toile wallpaper. The design showed a girl feeding chickens while a man in a wig sat on a horse watching from afar. The pattern repeated over and over, hundreds of girls, horses, pullets, and wigged gentlemen. I made up stories for them. One man had come to buy eggs and another was a stalker. Another had come home from war and the chicken girl was the daughter he didn’t know he had.

What a pity life didn’t offer multiple-choice solutions. If it did, I wouldn’t have gone to that pub. I would have stayed home and eaten coffee cake, leaving crumbs for the roaches. I wouldn’t have kissed Coop O’Malley—not that I hadn’t enjoyed it. I had. But lawyers didn’t take up with criminals unless they were getting paid by the hour.

Since I couldn’t go back to sleep, I prowled around the house. I found an old Electrolux in the hall closet and dragged it down the stairs. Aunt Bluette used to say it was impossible to cry and clean house at the same time. I’m sorry to report she was wrong. I was weepy-eyed when I started vacuuming the dining room. By the time I reached the kitchen, I was bawling.

I cried because I didn’t know the law and because I’d thrown dangerous objects. I cried because Bing was a dog-stealing, womanizing asshole. I cried because I’d be homeless in just a few hours and because I was spit polishing a house that wasn’t mine. I cried harder because the living room was pink and filled with breakable knickknacks. Then I laughed because I wouldn’t have to dust.

I was acting just like Mama. When I was eight, she finally escaped the peach farm by marrying Donnie Phelps, a school bus driver by day, beer guzzler at night. Mama and I went to the dollar store and filled our cart with doodads for Donnie’s trailer. It was a triple-wide, beige with white shutters and a front porch. Mama fixed it up right nice, adding wicker from Pier 1 and a straw rug she found at a garage sale. We’d sit up at night and watch the traffic on Savannah Highway. Aunt Bluette lived just beyond the curve, but Mama said we were taking a break from family.

When Donnie wasn’t driving innocent children to Musgrove Elementary, he restored antique cars for rich people. He took out a loan to buy a ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon. Mama said it was just like the one Jimmy Stewart drove in Vertigo. Me and her were major Hitchcock fans. She kind of looked like a brown-eyed Grace Kelly in Rear Window, with her thick blond hair and her graceful ways. You’d never know she was country-born, with an eighth-grade education.

Now that we had our own kitchen, Mama started cooking for real, pairing lip-smacking recipes with music and Bible verses, the way she had before.

“Why Bible verses?” Donnie asked her.

“So you can say grace in style,” she told him.

Mama was right big on style. She went to the organic farmer’s market and paid a fortune for fresh sage leaves.

“Always wash the leaves real good, Teeny,” she’d say.

“’Cause they’re dirty?” I asked.

“Kinda. But you don’t want to accidentally fry a bug.”

“Have you ever done that?”

“A time or two,” she said. “But I sure hated it.”

One night, Mama picked yellow squash from the vine, then brought it into the kitchen to fry. As she was laying the golden crisps onto a plate, she saw a deep-fried baby grasshopper. Her eyes filled. She hadn’t meant to kill an innocent little grasshopper—she’d always had a great fondness for living creatures—but there it was, resting on a fried squash round. Before she could remove it, Donnie passed by, stuck out his hand, and gobbled up the insect.

Every Monday she filled his kitchen with homemade bread, the pans all lined up on the counter, the dough pushing up against red tea towels. She saved the stale loaves for me, and I’d crumble them in the yard to feed Donnie’s chickens. Then I’d twirl in circles until I collapsed in the grass. Sometimes Mama would stop cooking and twirl with me. We’d clasp our hands and close our eyes and spin through great drifts of smell: bread, zucchini soup, and stew, the sauce fragrant with Chianti. Then we’d fall down together and I’d clap my hands.

“I love you more than beans and rice,” I’d say.

“I love you more than anything,” she’d say back.

When she got agitated, I tried to pull her into the kitchen and make her cook like Aunt Bluette had done, but my efforts were less successful. She had to be in the mood to bake. Sometimes I’d inadvertently make the situation worse by showing Mama food pictures in cooking catalogs. She’d reach for the phone and order exotic ingredients like saffron, curry, and truffle oil. Donnie got sick of hauling off the empty shipping cartons, which were filled with Styrofoam peanuts. He told her to buy local.

One day he came home and found a three-foot-tall plastic orchid sitting on the coffee table. I cringed, waiting for the explosion. Mama had bought that flower at Mrs. O’Malley’s swanky shop for twenty-five dollars, but it was a good buy because it had been marked down from $99.99.

“You bitches been out spending my money?” he cried.

“I got it on sale for practically nothing,” Mama said.

Donnie pulled me up by my arm. “How much did it cost, Teeny?”

“A dollar,” I said, adding another lie to my tally.

Then one evening, it all fell apart, and it had nothing to do with Mama’s buying habits—it was due to Donnie’s temper and my clumsiness. Mama and I sat on the porch, sipping milkshakes from the Dairy Queen, watching him clean the engine. “You can eat off this carburetor,” he said.

“Like I’d want to.” Mama laughed.

Donnie threw down his rag and started toward her. I leaped out of the way, but he grabbed my arm. “Don’t you shy away from me, you little bastard.” I pulled back and my paper cup went flying. The milkshake hit the engine and exploded.

He blacked Mama’s eyes and stomped her in the kidneys. I crouched behind the car, trying not to have an asthma attack. This was my fault, every bit of it. After the flying fur settled, he told her to get inside and fix him something cool to drink. I found her in the bathroom, washing blood off her face. Then she raked through the medicine cabinet and grabbed a plastic bottle.

“What you fixing to do, Mama?” I asked.

“Teach him a lesson. Come on, help me pinch open these capsules.” She lifted me onto the counter. I watched her put the medicine in a tall glass. She added a little sugar and salt, then opened an ice cold Budweiser. Donnie stepped into the kitchen and she handed him the glass.

“That’s more like it,” he said and took a swig. Mama walked to the bedroom and started filing her nails. Her right eye was almost swollen shut. Donnie stumbled into the room and flopped spread-eagle onto the bed.

“Man, I’m dizzy,” he said.

“Take you a little rest,” Mama said.

He shut his eyes and got real still. Then he began to snore. Mama ripped off the edges of the bottom sheet. “Teeny?” she whispered, “Fetch me the stapler, duct tape, and a Coke.”

When I returned, she’d already folded the bottom sheet around Donnie. She grabbed the stapler and went to work. I squatted beside the bed, twitching each time the gun snapped. She fastened the edges of the sheet until Donnie resembled a mummy. He didn’t wake up until she wrapped tape around his ankles. “Ruby?” he croaked.

She ignored him and kept wrapping him in tape. Once she started a project, she didn’t like to stop. Donnie’s arms twitched, but they were fastened tight. He watched her with a puzzled expression and tried to raise up. She pushed him down. Then she reached for the Coke bottle and took a dainty sip.

“What you looking at?” she asked him.

“Goddamn you, Ruby. Undo me. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

While he talked, she poured the cola into his mouth. It spilled down his face, onto the mattress. A gargling sound rose up. He spit, and Coke spewed into Mama’s face. She turned the bottle upside down and shook out the last few drops. Then she grasped the bottle by its neck and beat the hell out of him. He screamed, his hips bucking up and down.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Mama cracked the bottle on his nose. “Teach you to hit me again.”

He screeched. I felt bad for him, but he had it coming. I opened my mouth, trying to move air in and out of my lungs. Each breath sounded like an iron door with a rusty hinge.

“Teeny, we don’t have time for an asthma attack,” she said. “Pack your things.”

My medicines were lined up in the kitchen window. I put them in a sack with a few clothes. We ran out to his station wagon. The engine backfired, then it caught. Mama turned onto the highway. I tried not to wheeze. Catching my breath was like climbing a mountain and getting slapped down by the wind. Every now and then, I’d reach the top, only to see another hill.

I hollered when she sped by Aunt Bluette’s farm. “Teeny, we can’t live in this town anymore.” She sucked the back of her hand. “Donnie’ll hunt me down. He’ll kill me and you both. I’m sorry, baby, but you’re only eight years old. I can’t let you die. And we can’t go home.”

I wiped my eyes. Home wasn’t Donnie’s triple-wide. It was my pink bedroom at the farm. It was Aunt Bluette’s hand on my cheek. Home was the place where all my scattered pieces came to rest.

Mama pushed her foot against the accelerator, and we flew into the night, farther and farther from Donnie and Aunt Bluette.

*   *   *

Miss Dora and her man servant, Estaurado, showed up before lunch. He resembled a Spanish version of the Blues Brothers—sunglasses, hat, and a black polyester suit. He was tall and emaciated, with a pointy beard, and cast a spiky shadow along the floor.

Miss Dora bustled around in a pink bouclé suit, her pocketbook swinging back and forth. Her hands and face were a violent shade of red. “Have you been in the sun?” I asked.

“I’m a sight!” Her hand flew to her face. “You would not believe what I’ve been through. I stopped for lunch at Chez Cassie. I’m highly allergic to sucralose. That’s what makes things like Splenda so sweet. I don’t know how it got into my dessert—or maybe it was that latte I drank—but it did.”

“Can people be allergic to that?” I asked.

“Apparently so. The first time it happened, I thought I had a rash. And it didn’t hit me right away, so I never associated it with sucralose. After that, whenever I ate something with artificial sweetening, my symptoms got worse and worse. This time, I turned blood red and started itching. Even my ears swelled.”

“You poor thing.” I studied her face. Her ears did look big.

“Not everybody with sucralose allergies does this.” She reached into her purse, pulled out a gold compact, and studied her face. “The emergency room doctor blamed it on my quirky body chemistry. Well, I am allergic to just about everything. He pumped me full of steroids and told me to avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague.”

“I wish I’d known,” I said. “I could have made your supper.”

“You’re too sweet.” She snapped the compact shut, her bracelets clattering. “Estaurado, run and get Teeny’s clothes.”

He twisted his head, as if trying to understand.

She repeated her command with exaggerated slowness and Estaurado stepped into the corridor. “I have to be so careful with him, Teeny. He misunderstands every word I say. Just yesterday, he told me he was getting sick and threw out a foreign word, constipación. Well, I dosed him up with Ex-Lax. Little did I know constipación was the common cold.”

“Get a Spanish dictionary,” I said.

“Oh, I’ve got several. The man is just too literal—though I’m sure he’d say it’s the other way around.” She rolled her eyes. “Never mind him. I got into a huge fight with Bing Laden. But I got your clothes.”

Estaurado returned with four bulging Hefty bags. “Su ropa, senorita.”

“See what I mean?” Miss Dora rolled her eyes. “Now he’s mixing up ropes and clothing. Darlin’, I’m sure your pretty outfits are wrinkled to high heaven. When I got to Bing’s, everything you owned was laying in his front yard.”

While she talked, she bustled around the entry hall, straightening pictures and rearranging knickknacks. “This place needs fluffing in the worst way,” she said. “It’s not formal enough.”

I glanced around. If it had been mine, I’d have packed up the silver and the porcelain figurines and popped a fig cake into the oven. This house took itself too seriously. It needed the opposite of formal.

Miss Dora pushed a fat white envelope into my hand and said, “Don’t spend wisely—squander it.”

I pushed it back, but she grabbed my hand. “Keep it, darlin’. Only god knows what you’ve had to tolerate the last few months, engaged to that pussymonger. Speaking of men, I was supposed to meet a client twenty minutes ago.”

Estaurado shuffled toward me and held out a box. “For you, senorita,” he said.

He waved one hand, indicating that I should open the box. I pulled off the lid and saw six tiny figurines laying on a cotton strip.

“What are they?”

“Worry dolls, senorita.”

“Why, thank you,” I said, touched by the gesture.

His face dissolved into wrinkles as he smiled, and crooked front teeth pressed against his bottom lip.

Miss Dora peeked over my shoulder. “You’re supposed to tell them your problems and stick them under your pillow. Speaking of troubles, I’ll be in a fine mess if I don’t leave this second. Tell you what, I’ll try to stop by later. Maybe I’ll treat you to an early supper.”

“I’d enjoy that.”

“See you then.” She lifted one hand and wiggled her fingers. “Come, Estaurado.”

Miss Dora blew me a kiss and breezed out the door, into the corridor, with Estaurado bobbing in her wake.

I squatted beside the trash bags. Inside the first one, I found a shoe box with a silvery key. It was my spare to Bing’s house. I started to throw it away, then I remembered Bing’s upcoming trip to Pinehurst. He went every summer to play golf. I’d planned to go too, and I’d lined up a dog sitter to feed and walk Sir twice a day. Maybe I could sneak over to Bing’s house and visit my dog. I could also get Templeton Family Receipts.

I fit the key onto Miss Dora’s chain and dropped the pink tassel into the bowl. Then I pushed the Hefty bags next to the staircase. No need to unpack. I was leaving in the morning, what with Bing’s deadline. I hadn’t found an apartment, so I’d have to stay at a cheap motel until I found a job.

As I started out of the foyer, my heel snagged on one of the bags, and a black sheath dress spilled out. Bing had bought it specially for our engagement party. It had a high neckline, fit for Sunday school or a funeral.

“Shouldn’t I wear a peppy color?” I’d asked him.

“Black is the new white,” he’d said. “And don’t let Dora say otherwise. That woman looks like a Mary Kay cosmetics trophy. The bitch suffers from pinkitis.”

It was true. Miss Dora’s house was raspberry stucco, but the interior was pink as a cat’s mouth. The night of the party, Bing took me on a tour, pointing out paint colors. “This room is Baboon’s Ass Pink,” he said, waving at the guest room. He guided me down the hall, pointing at other rooms. “Vaginal Blush,” he said. “Nipple Nougat.”

We made love in the pinkest bedroom. Then we crept down the stairs, into the real world of Charleston and Miss Dora’s friends. Bing introduced me as Christine and said I was a gourmet cook. People were just as sweet as could be, asking about my china and silver patterns, which, thanks to Miss Dora, I’d picked out at Belk.

I couldn’t have said why, but after the party, everything changed between me and Bing. We were just too different. I was bashful; he was outgoing. I would take food to a funeral and not tape my name to the bottom of the bowl. Bing craved recognition. Every time I drove by a billboard with his picture on it, or saw a Jackson Realty ad on television, I’d have to get a sugar fix.

A few days after the party, I was watching the local news and one of Bing’s ads came on. I grabbed my purse and headed to the door. “I’m going to Piggly Wiggly to buy me some Easter Peeps,” I told him. “You want anything?”

“God, what are you, the Swamp Queen?” Bing said. “It’s not ‘buy me some Easter Peeps.’ Just say, I’m going to ‘buy Easter Peeps.’ You don’t need ‘me.’”

Now, barely two months later, the engagement was off. I pushed the black dress into the bag and walked to the kitchen. As I crammed chocolate cherries into my mouth, I tried not to think about Bing or his leggy girlfriends, but I couldn’t help it.

I imagined shooting the women with a paint gun. No, that wasn’t mean enough. I wouldn’t feel satisfied until I’d force-fed them Good Riddance Blueberry Pie. It calls for sugar, Scotch whiskey, and 1½ cups of heavy whipping cream. Add 2½ cups of berries, along with 3 tablespoons of melted blueberry jelly and a dollop of Havoc—a blue, granular rat poison with a rodent-alluring flavor. The berries will mix right in with the fatal aqua-blueness of the pellets. Sprinkle more Havoc into the buttery homemade pie dough, adding a handful of chopped hazelnuts and dried berries. Flatten with a rolling pin, pressing it over the dough this way and that. Make a wish. Pray for an unwrinkled love life. Or maybe that’s the problem, maybe I’d stretched it too thin. But never mind all that. A pie like this calls for two crusts, top and bottom, symbolic of the missionary position—which, like pie, is easy to overindulge in.

In real life, I would never make this pie. But I imagined how tart and sweet it would taste, and how it would ooze over the bone china plate. Come on, girls, I’d say, one bite won’t kill you. I’d sit back, watch them eat. Each forkful would deliver sweet explosions of flavor, texture, and death. I could see all the way to their funerals. They’d be laid out in mahogany coffins with leopard-spotted linings. Their dead selves would be dressed in formfitting black Dolce & Gabbana suits, also with a silk leopard lining. Instead of clutching little Bibles, they would hold Neiman Marcus shopping bags and iPhones.

I would never kill a rat. What had a rat ever done to me? I’d use those live traps and call it a day. So I sure as hell wouldn’t poison those women. It’s flat impossible to poison skanks who never eat carbohydrates.