Chapter 29 #2
She’d learned a long time ago that men liked it when she made the conversation all about them.
They liked to believe that she really was fascinated by every banal detail about their job or their sports team or their truck.
By every opinion that came out of their mouths, no matter how stupid or offensive.
And they never once realized that her interest in them was as fake as her smile.
Because, to them, she didn’t actually exist. She wasn’t a real person; she was just a figment of their fantasies. She was Fuck Me Barbie. Which was fine, because deep down, she didn’t believe she existed either. Deep down, she knew that Jessica Meeks was a lie, and that her whole life was, too.
She wondered what he knew about her past. At least some of it. Maybe all of it.
He wasn’t asking for her life story because he wanted to know about it. He was asking because he wanted her to tell him.
And no one had ever wanted that from her before. At least, not for a very long time.
She swallowed, not knowing where to start. She wished she did have the whiskey bottle in hand. It felt like a necessary aid if she was going to go digging up things in her past.
Dead and buried things in her past.
She looked down at her hands and said, “I used to be a ballet dancer.” She could feel his eyes on her, but she kept her head down.
“I trained my whole life for it. Turned out it was more my mom’s dream than mine.
’ She lifted her knees, draping her wrists over them.
“But I still miss it, you know. I miss having a dream, a purpose, even if it wasn’t mine. ”
He said nothing for a while, just stared at her like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
Then he looked away and said, “You know, you didn’t have to work in that place.
” He snatched a quick glance at her. “I mean, not that I’m judging you or anyone who does that kinda thing for a living.
I’m just saying…” he trailed off awkwardly, then cleared his throat and tried again.
“There’s federal assistance available. The USMS can arrange for you to attend to college, if that’s something you wanted to do one day. ”
She said nothing for a long moment. Just listened to the wind and chewed her inner cheek.
Obviously, working at Femme Fatale was never her life’s ambition.
At first, she told herself that stripping was some kind of feminist power move, that she was making men pay for what they would otherwise just take for free.
But deep down, she knew it was less about feminism and more about capitalism.
It paid better than waiting tables or cleaning motel rooms, plain and simple.
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head like he felt stupid for bringing it up. “It’s none of my business.”
His embarrassment made her want to say something concessionary. Made her want to acknowledge his attempt to give her life advice, even though he had precious little right offering it.
“Dance therapy,” she blurted.
He looked at her, a question in his eyes.
“I was thinking of becoming qualified in it one day.” When I have my shit together, she added mentally.
“Dance therapy?” he repeated.
She nodded. “After a traumatic event, the brain tries to suppress it, while the body holds on to it. It remains reactive. For years afterwards. And the theory is that physical movement, like yoga or dance, can help. It sort of rewires the brain. There’s all this research that’s proves how effective it is.
” She gave him a dry look. “But you probably think that’s a load of woke nonsense, right? ”
“No,” he said softly. “I do not.”
She examined his face, but it showed no signs of skepticism. In fact, he seemed genuinely interested. “I mean, I’d need a Master’s degree, and to go through a clinical internship and all that. It’ll be a lot of work.”
He took her hand. The gesture didn’t seem romantic, so much as comforting. “How about I make you a deal?” he said. “If we make it out of this mess, if I get you to Baton Rouge—come hell or high water—promise me you’ll consider it, okay?”
She was amazed that he was invested enough in her life to bother making such a deal.
But she nodded and said, “Okay.” Then she smiled and added, “I mean, obviously, I can’t keep stripping forever.
I’m over thirty. Getting a little long in the tooth to be prancing around the stage in nothing but a thong, don’t you think? ”
The question was meant to be rhetorical, but he seemed to think it needed answering.
He turned his head on the wall to look at her and said softly, “Oh, I thought you looked real pretty.” His hand was still closed around hers, his thumb brushing her knuckles.
“Matter of fact, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. ”
He didn’t sound like a lawman anymore. He sounded like a Southern boy in a bar trying to pick her up. And she remembered exactly how he’d been looking at her, standing under the Exit sign while she’d been up on stage. Like he’d strayed into a dream instead of a dingy dive bar.
She had a sudden desire to lean over and kiss him, just to see if his mouth tasted as good as the syrupy drawl that came from it. And she knew now that he’d kiss her back. He’d do whatever she let him do.
She’d read somewhere that when people found themselves in life-threatening situations, the desire to procreate became front of mind.
Basically, when everything was fucked, people just wanted to fuck.
There was probably something Freudian in it, something about how sex was a coping mechanism, a way of warding off the fear of death.
Or maybe it was for the same reason those people left evacuating to the last minute. Maybe it was simply about hope.
She dragged her gaze away, her fingers going to the ring around her neck. Daniel’s memory flared in her mind, and any desire to kiss the marshal flickered out and died.
Crossing her arms over her knees, she said, “What happened with your wife? Since we’re, you know, sharing.”
His jaw clenched, then released. He glanced down at his hand, as if expecting to still see a ring there.
“Sorry,” she said. “I mean, if she died of some awful disease or something.”
“No, it’s just, you know, complicated.” He gave his head a quick shake. “We were together for seven years. We’ve been separated for longer than that now.”
She stared at him, trying to do the math. “Wait, how old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
“So, you got married when you were…?”
“Seventeen.”
“Whoa. I mean, I know they do things differently in the mountains, but seventeen?”
He shot her a droll look. Then he sighed and said, “I’d gotten her pregnant.”
Okay. Choir boy, maybe not. “So your parents made you get married?”
He shook his head. “Not mine. My daddy gave me three hundred dollars, the keys to his truck, and directions to a clinic in Knoxville.” He glanced at her quickly. “Only if she’d wanted too, of course.”
“But she didn’t?”
A deep wail, precursor to another massive gust, interrupted him before he could answer.
It sounded like an incoming freight train, and it hit the house with about as much force.
She grabbed Inglis’s arm as the room buckled sideways.
Outside, she heard things falling and hitting the ground.
Crockery, the tins of food, the kitchen chairs.
The door to their room rattled like the hurricane herself was trying to get in.
They both stared at the door and then at each other. She swallowed, letting go of his arm. Then she nodded at him, wanted him to go on with his story, wanting to think of anything else but the storm outside.
He inhaled deeply. “Her folks wouldn’t let her get a termination. Her daddy was a pastor. Of the fire and brimstone variety. Threatened to disown her if she went through with it. Threatened to come after me with a twelve bore if I didn’t do right by her.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “I had to go hide out in my daddy’s hunting cabin in the mountains till he calmed down.” He said it with a smile that quickly faded. “We didn’t seem to think getting married was the worst idea at the time. We were young. And dumb. And in love.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I know how that goes.”
He didn’t respond, and they were both quiet for a spell. “So…” she drew the word out, “you have a kid?”
The ball of his jaw tightened again. He forked his fingertips through his hair, then gave his head a quick shake.
“No. She lost the baby. She was nearly full term, eight and a half months. But there was no heartbeat. So, she had to go through labor, the whole birth and everything. But the baby was…” He swallowed hard and didn’t continue.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He dropped his head, pressed his fingertips to his eyelids. “It was awful. For everyone. But mostly for her. Her daddy told her it was God punishing us for having been so ungrateful of His gift in the first place.”
Her eyebrows flew up, and he gave her a wry look.
“Oh, yeah. Randy Hyssop was a mean son of a bitch on a good day.” He sighed, looking down at his lap.
“I’d just turned eighteen. I had no idea how to deal with any of it.
All I could think was that I wished we’d taken the three hundred bucks and the trip to Knoxville. ”
He glanced at her, right in the eyes, like he expected to see some judgment reflected in them. She took his hand again and squeezed it, like he’d done to hers earlier.
“We tried to make it work,” he said. “Moved west, to Memphis. I went to college; she went to nursing school. But she wasn’t coping.
She had a lot of guilt, I think. Over the baby.
She seemed to think it was her fault somehow.
Like she actually believed what her daddy said about the miscarriage.
She’d started taking these antidepressants, and then she started taking pain pills.
Then she started stealing scrips and meds from the hospital where she worked.
” He looked down at his lap. “She just spiraled. I found out she had a dealer. Then I found out she was screwing her dealer.” He inhaled, then shook his head. “So, yeah. That ended that.”
He stared down at their joined hands, like he expected them to enter the conversation. “We never actually got divorced. We just kind of stopped being married. She took off up north somewhere.” He shrugged. “I think she has a kid now. A boy.”
They were both quiet again. Listening to the heavy beat of the rain and the soft hiss of the candle. The building continued to sway with the wind, like a ship at sea. She’d gotten so used to it now that she expected when the storm was finally over, she’d have trouble walking on steady ground.
“You don’t still keep in touch?”
“Oh, she still calls and texts me occasionally.” His jaw tightened.
“When she wants something. Money, usually.” He shook his head and sighed.
“But whatever else we had is over. Which is for the best.” He paused, then added, “Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than to hurt yourself trying to put them back together. ”
She smiled at him. “That was deep.”
He returned the smile. “It’s something my mama said to me once. I never forgot it.”
“She sounds like a wise lady.”
He nodded, his smile turning sad. “She was.”
She looked up and, without thinking, reached out a hand to smooth the back of his hair, at the place he was constantly fidgeting with. “But your wife knew, right? That you loved her?”
He shook his head, although she knew he wasn’t saying no. “Yeah. Kylie knows.” The way he said it, in the present tense, made her think he did still love her. And that maybe she loved him, too. He turned to look at her. “But it’s not enough, you know. Love.”
No, she thought. Sometimes it’s not.