Soft and low, p.4
Soft and Low, page 4
“What’s all over your face?” she asked me, staring.
“Hello to you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I drove toward the street, turning away from her.
Tracey grabbed my chin and tilted my face toward hers. “You’re all done up!” she exclaimed. “Why? What’s going on?”
I pulled away from her. “Nothing’s going on! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit. Are you seeing that guy again? Dugan?”
I stopped myself before I corrected her on his name. “No. Remember, I asked you to drop that? What happened at school today?”
She moved easily into complaining about the annoying kids, the annoying teacher, the annoying everything, and that conversation lasted all the way into Detroit. I didn’t have to say anything except, “Oh, yuck” and “That’s too bad,” so my mind was free to wander. It wandered all the way back to when I had sent a message to Digger about tonight, struggling over the words to choose, the tone to take, the timing—too soon after I saw him and I’d look desperate, and too close to the weekend and maybe he’d have made other plans. I agonized and worried and re-worked what I’d written, finally just saying where we’d be and when. My heart pounding, I finally pressed send, and then spent the next several hours staring at the screen. The next morning when I’d gotten up he had answered: “Sure.”
Just the one word! What did that mean? Would he be there tonight? I nervously ran my hand down over my hair.
I didn’t see him anywhere. Tracey and I had been at the club for more than an hour, and she had danced and drank and definitely reconnected with the bartender. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of people I didn’t know, sipping a drink which tasted nasty, trying not to be disappointed and upset. It didn’t matter, I told myself. I didn’t care. “Sure” hadn’t meant that Digger was coming. I tilted my face up to the ceiling so the tears wouldn’t run down my face. He had said he wanted to see me, but it wasn’t true.
For crying out loud! I was acting like the little girl my father thought I was. I didn’t even know this guy, there was no reason to get upset. Why would he have been interested in me, anyway?
Tracey was kneeling on a stool and leaning over the bar, making out with the bartender. There was a small crowd gathered, watching them. I tugged her skirt down over her thong and she broke free of his mouth.
“I’m leaving,” I told her. “Have fun.”
“See you,” she answered carelessly.
“I’m not picking you up,” I said. “Get a car this time.”
“What the fuck, Wreck? We came together!”
“Get a car,” I said over my shoulder, and put my hands over my ears. I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I seemed to be making a string of bad decisions. Maybe my father was right about me, and I just couldn’t be trusted. Maybe—
Two hands grasped my shoulders and I looked up into Digger’s eyes. He was there. “Let’s go,” he mouthed to me, the words exaggerated so that I could read them in the half-darkness. Gratefully, I followed him out of the club.
I saw Digger laughing as we left and he said something else.
“What?”
He leaned down and I quickly turned my head so that he was spoke into my right ear. “I said, I never saw anyone look as miserable as you just did. Fun night?”
“It was fine.” I put my chin up. “There were a lot of interesting people.”
He laughed harder. “Right. So much fascinating conversation.” He threw his arm around my shoulders. He did feel warm, even in the bitter cold. I let myself press against him. “Come with me.” We walked up to an old car, polished and shiny. “This is mine.” He looked at me expectantly. “Fairlane.” I must have looked blank. “It’s a 1966 Ford Fairlane. It was my dad's.”
“It’s very nice,” I told him.
“You don’t know cars,” Digger stated. Maybe not, but I could learn. Suddenly, I was interested.
He started the engine and pulled out, driving at least twice as fast as I generally did. “I was late,” he told me, and squeezed my leg, above my knee. I jumped. “I got stuck at the garage.”
“It didn’t matter to me,” I said loftily.
“Right,” he said, and squeezed again. The car’s engine roared.
“Where are we going?” I asked, suddenly a little nervous, and Digger grinned.
“Wherever we want to, baby girl. Enjoy the ride.”
Chapter 3
Digger liked to drive and we flew through the city. Me, who rarely went above 50—I realized I was smiling, laughing as he drove. We ended up stopping at a tiny bar, a dark, hole in the wall kind of place with a few tables and most of the people there involved in shooting pool.
“How’s this?” Digger asked me. “Quiet enough for you?” He had remembered what I had said about liking things quieter. He put his hand on my back and guided me to a little table.
I nodded. The music wasn’t too loud, but the background noise of conversation and clicking cues and balls was still going to make it a little more difficult. Plus, it was too dark to really see his mouth and face very well, but I had never been the best at lip reading, anyway. I tucked the hair behind my right ear and leaned forward, tilting it towards him.
“I thought you didn’t want to go to any more clubs with your friend. That place is full of idiots, anyway.”
“Tracey likes going out, a lot. She likes to…meet people,” I explained.
Digger raised his eyebrow. “Meet people, huh. I saw her doing that—” and he said something I didn’t get.
“What?”
“Last weekend,” he said louder. “I saw her making new friends last weekend.”
I stared at him. “You were there?”
“How did you think I came to be following you down the street?”
“You were following me? Me?”
“Yeah, you. I watched you there, looking so cute but so unhappy. I watched you leave by yourself, which was a very bad idea. So I followed you, and then I saw you get into a fight with a pimp.” His hand fell heavily on my knee. “Lucky thing I did, I’d say.” He leaned forward too. “You were doing it again tonight, leaving by yourself. Don’t do that anymore.”
“I wouldn’t have, if you had been there when I said,” I responded, amazed at my sass. But Digger just grinned at me.
“Next time I’ll be on time.” He sat back, his hand sliding from my leg.
Next time? Next time!
We sat at the little table and talked and talked. He had a sister, seven years younger, just like me and Ian. But his little sister was in medical school. “She’s the smart one,” he told me proudly. “She never got below an A on her report card.”
“That’s how my brother is, too. He’s smart, and good at sports, and popular. He’s a great kid.” I smiled, thinking about Ian.
“Did you like school?”
I lost the smile. “No. Not at all.”
“Why not? The boys wouldn’t leave you alone?”
I snorted. “Please! They didn’t notice that I was there.”
Digger sat up and frowned. He said something garbled but I could understand one word clearly: “stupid.”
I flushed. “I wasn’t stupid. I’m not stupid, it was hard for me for a lot of reasons. But I went to college, and I graduated!”
“Not you, baby girl, the boys. They must have been stupid boys at your school. What did you think I said?”
I shrugged and looked at my drink. The pool players were getting louder and I was having a harder time. Once, so he could understand, I had gotten an ear plug for my brother, and then put on music and the TV and made him close his eyes. The ear plug dampened the sound coming into his one ear, and with it, he was totally thrown off. “Guess where I’m standing,” I had dared him, then talked to him from different parts of the room. He never got it right. “Now repeat what I’m saying,” I said, and talked to him in a normal tone of voice. He didn’t get that right, either, even when I stood close, and he had yanked out the ear plug, frustrated.
“I wasn’t good in school, either. I barely graduated,” Digger said.
“Why?”
“I was working all the time,” he explained.
“For your dad?”
He took a swig of beer. “My dad died when I was in tenth grade and he was sick for a while before that. I was trying to keep the business going for my mom and my sister.”
“That must have been so hard. That was nice of you.”
“Nah, not nice. A necessity. Now my mom is taken care of, my sister can go to school and graduate without thousands of dollars hanging over her head.” He nodded, satisfied. “It’s all good now.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. I meant it.
“Is your phone ringing?”
I hadn’t heard it at all or felt the vibration through my bag. It was Tracey, of course, but I didn’t bother to answer. Then I saw the time. “My God, is it that late?” I jumped up. “I have to go, right now!”
Digger stood too. “Where’s the fire? You have to get your friend?”
“That’s Tracey calling, and I’m sure she wants me to get her, but I don’t have time.” I was trying to pull on my coat.
“Why’s she calling you? She’s a grown-up woman.”
“Sometimes she gets in over her head,” I explained. “When she drinks, she does very dumb stuff.”
“Like the rest of the world.” Digger put some money on the table. “Ok, let’s go.”
I listened to the message from Tracey when we got outside. She was angry because the bartender hadn’t wanted to end the night with her, and she thought I was a bad friend because now she was going to have to get a car service back to her house. But I still had to get home for my curfew. I was leaning forward in the front seat of Digger’s car as he drove me back to where I had parked.
“What’s your rush?” he asked me. “You’re that worried about that girl?”
“No, I just have to get home for my cur—right now. Because of my parents.”
“For your what? Wait, you live with your parents still?” he asked me, sounding surprised.
I was filled with shame. “It’s a complicated situation.”
“And they watch when you come and go?”
“It’s very complicated.” I looked at Digger, but he was just nodding, slowly. “It’s hard to explain.”
“None of my business.”
I felt like I was eight years old. I sank back in the seat, disappointed with myself. I wished I hadn’t had to tell him about my stupid life, at least, not right away.
“When I said none of my business, I meant, I don’t care,” Digger announced. “Live in a hole in the ground, it’s fine by me.”
“I’d rather not.”
He laughed. “You don’t seem like a hole kind of girl. Probably a house would be better for you.”
He pulled up in front of the lot where I had parked, and insisted on waiting with me while the attendant moved the mountain of cars around to free mine. I hopped from one foot to another, until Digger stepped behind me and pulled me back to his chest. “Quit jumping. Here.”
He was warm. Leaning against him was like resting on a heated seat, and I could feel it right through my coat. When the car was ready, I didn’t want to leave. It was lovely, standing with him like that, all warm and safe. I wasn’t used to a lot of hugging.
Digger leaned over my open door. “I’m glad I got to see you tonight, Cinderella. I’ll be talking to you soon.”
“Ok,” I said, trying to remember not to care. Then I couldn’t help it, and a smile grew on my face. “I’m glad I got to see you, too.”
Digger tilted his head and looked at me. He reached out and touched my cheek. “Drive fast.” He stood up and closed the car door. He was still standing in the same place, watching me drive away, when I got to the corner and turned right and lost sight of him.
I did have to drive fast, because I was late, late, late. At red lights, I pulled on the sweater I had been wearing when I left the house and used wet wipes to remove most of my makeup. I parked at the end of the driveway and ran, hoping against hope that my father wouldn’t have heard my car, and that he’d already be asleep.
The light was on in the kitchen. He was seated at the island where I liked to roll out my dough on the cool, marble surface. He didn’t even have his laptop out in front of him, he was just silently waiting.
“Rebecca.”
I started to shake. I couldn’t help myself.
“You must have been unaware of the time.”
I nodded and took a trembling breath. “I’m sorry. I did lose track of the time. It got later than I thought and I drove home as fast as I could. I’m sorry.”
“Do you understand now why I can’t trust you?” His voice was so quiet and calm. “Do you understand the difficulty of my position, Rebecca? You, who should be an adult, are no better than a child. You can’t be depended on for even the simplest task of returning home at a given hour.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, hearing the quake in my voice.
“Sorry. I’m sure you are. I’m sure when you look at what you have become, you are very sorry. There are many, many things that I’m sorry about, as well. I’m most sorry that I wasn’t able to instill in you the importance of reliability. Of truth-telling. You’re a little liar. A worthless liar.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. But I was. I was a liar.
“Yes.” He stood and walked around the corner, grabbing my arm in an iron grip. “You’re a useless waste, of my time, of my money. Everything, everything has been given to you. How do you repay me? With lies? With your silly attempts at work, at cooking, at everything?” He shook me. “Answer!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry. I’ll be better.”
He shoved me then, and I hit my hip on the kitchen table and fell across it. Instinctively, I covered my ear with the hearing aid.
“Get out of here. I can’t stand the sight of you. You make me ashamed every time I lay eyes on you. Worthless, pitiful, stupid liar.” He slapped me across the face. “Don’t lie to me again!”
I was sobbing as I ran up the stairs, both hands over my mouth so that Ian wouldn’t hear me. The most important thing was to keep him out of it. I opened the window and scooped some snow off the roof to put in a washcloth for the incipient bruise on my hip and for the stinging ache on my cheek. It hadn’t been that bad tonight.
There had definitely been worse.
∞
I got up early on Sunday morning to bake for Ian’s game. While the blondies were in the oven, I sliced up oranges and apples to put in big containers and mixed up the homemade granola with extra almonds, sunflower and pumpkin and flax seeds, wheat germ, maple syrup, organic oats, and every other healthy, carb-loading ingredient I had been able to think of to fuel them. I put all that in the ovens too, and by the time Ian came down into the kitchen, I had eggs going for him on the stove, and the food bag was all packed and ready.
“Thanks, Wreck,” he said tiredly.
“Late night?”
“I went out with Maryam.” Ian could come and go as he chose because my parents trusted him to be responsible. “Then I came home and studied for my history test tomorrow,” he continued, proving that he was totally reliable and conscientious. “I’m dead this morning. How about you?”
Good, he hadn’t heard anything of the skirmish in the kitchen. “I went out with Tracey.”
“Again?” Ian hated her. She treated him like a child, practically patting him on the head and talking in a baby voice whenever she saw him. “Wreck, why don’t you make some new friends?”
“Like Melina at work? We could talk about our hemorrhoids and bloating together. Doesn’t that sound fun?” I put his whole-grain toast on a plate and smeared it with peanut butter, then added the sliced banana. From the time he was little, he’d liked the same thing every day for breakfast when I was there to cook it for him. On game days I tried to give him more.
“Like more friends your own age. Tracey is a real bitch to you and—”
“Excuse me, Ian?” Our father walked into the room, and it felt like all the light got sucked out of it. My hands immediately started to shake. Ian bent over his plate, mumbling an apology for cursing. I spooned up the eggs for him and put the pan in the sink. Then, as I went to put the rest of the eggs away, I hit my bruised hip on the counter. The abrupt pain made me gasp, and I dropped the carton. It fell with a decided splat on the tile floor.
“Oh, Rebecca,” my father said, sighing. “I’m going to have to start charging you every time you break or ruin something else. Maybe then you’ll learn to be less clumsy and take more care. Thank goodness you were always so terrible at sports, or you would have ended up breaking your neck somehow.”
Ian got up to help me but I shook my head at him and knelt on the floor, wiping up the yellow yoke and sticky white that had seeped through the cardboard package. I was an idiot. Stupid, stupid. Ian’s face looked frozen in anger, and I knew our father was going to be furious if he saw his perfect son with that expression. I didn’t want Ian to defend me, and it looked like he was gearing up to do that.
He turned on our father. “She’s not clumsy. You make her nervous,” he said.
Oh, no. “Ian. Stop,” I said, standing up and shaking my head at him. “I was very dumb to drop the eggs. I wasted them. It was a dumb thing to do and he was right. Please just eat your breakfast.”
“You have problems of your own, Ian,” my father said, turning on him. “I was just looking at your grades online. What’s happening in math? You have a B? And your average in physics dropped two percentage points? How do you expect to get into college with those grades?”
“I’m doing the best I can!” Ian’s voice rose. My father stood up, facing him. I looked from one to the other. What would he do to Ian? When he took a step forward, I swept my hand across the counter, knocking a glass onto the tile floor. It shattered into a million pieces.
