Old Boyfriends

Only when she turned a corner past a dry cleaner’s shop did any of us speak. “We can’t let her go back,” Cat said. She’d acted so blasé before, but now her jaw was clenched and it jutted forward like a bulldog’s. Belligerent and determined. Tenacious.

We both looked at Bitsey. Her face was almost as pale as Margaret’s, but she wasn’t crying. She looked at each of us. “You’re right. We have to get her out of there, even if at first she refuses to come. If she won’t protect herself, then we have to protect her. I have to protect her,” she said.

I leaned forward on the table. “Maybe we should call Jack.”

Bitsey shook her head. “Jack doesn’t need to know how his little girl is living, or with whom. First of all, it would kill him. And second of all, we can handle this.” She grabbed each of our hands. “We can. We have to.”

We. My first instinct was to save Margaret. My second was to avoid any kind of ugly scene with her or the creep she was living with. But Bitsey’s quiet conviction and Cat’s unmistakable fury gave me courage.

“So, how are we supposed to do this?” I asked. “I mean, it sounds like you want to kidnap her or something.”

“If I have to, I will,” Bitsey responded.

“You can’t be serious.”

“She was right about stripping your house of all the valuables, wasn’t she?” Cat pointed out.

“Well, yes. But her first suggestion was to burn it down. And don’t forget, she wanted to drown the Jag.”

But Cat didn’t back down. “This is different. Those were things. This is Margaret. Little Magpie.”

So we made a plan. First we staked out her place. Cat and I took turns strolling by, disguised by big straw hats and white plastic sunglasses. It was about quarter after two when some lanky, shaved-head guy with sideburns and a goatee sauntered out of Margaret’s place. He stood on the front steps scratching his belly and lit a cigarette. Then he crossed to a beat-up blue van, climbed in, and with a smoky roar, drove off.

We called Bitsey. “He’s skinny, almost six feet tall. No hair, blue jeans and a black T-shirt. With a hole in it.”

“You just described every other musician on MTV. So he’s gone and she’s inside?”

“It seems that way.”

“I’ll be right there with the car.”

The three of us knocked and knocked, but there was no answer. “Maybe she’s pulling an M.J.,” Cat said.

“Excuse me,” I said. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been juice, tea and water for me for over a week.”

“Ignore her,” Bitsey told me. “Cat is just being her smart-alecky self.”

“What? Me, smart-alecky?”

“Y’all! Focus!” Bitsey ordered. “What do we do now?”

Cat and I shared a look. “She’s probably loaded. That’s why she won’t wake up,” Cat said. “I say we break in, get her in the car and go.”

So we did. I was scared to death, so my job was to back the car into the driveway, move everything off the backseat and keep a lookout for the creep in the blue van.

Displaying a talent she had up to now kept hidden from us, Cat pried open a screen, lifted herself up and shimmied through the bathroom window, then came around and opened the door for Bitsey.

When a woman peered out at us through a window in the house next door, my adrenaline, which was already pumping, started speeding. But she must not have called the cops, because it took nearly fifteen minutes to get Margaret out, and no police cars ever showed up to investigate. I watched fearfully as they walked Margaret out the side door, hefting her between them like a limp doll. “Good grief. What’s she on?”

“Probably Vicodin,” Cat said. “We found a half-empty bottle.”

Bitsey looked as if she’d aged fifteen years in the last fifteen minutes. But she had this superhuman strength, because she maneuvered Margaret as if she were still a little kid, heaving her into the backseat and folding her legs carefully inside.

“Get the bags,” she told Cat, who was already on her way back into the apartment.

Just then a van slowed in front of the house. That van with that man. Seeing his parking spot taken, he passed the house.

“Get in. Get in!” I yelled to Bitsey. “Cat! He’s back. Hurry up!”

The woman next door was watching us again, but I didn’t care. I was scared and I wanted us out of there. Bitsey pushed me into the driver’s seat. Not that I needed much pushing. “Drive!” she ordered, climbing in beside Margaret.

“What about Cat?”

“Just get this car out of here! I’ll…I’ll go back to get Cat.”

So I pulled out, laying rubber like a sixteen-year-old the first time out on his own with his mother’s car. A half block down the creep was climbing out of his van, and for a moment I considered running him over. It was only for a very brief moment. But if I hit him the police would definitely come. So we whizzed past him, just a little too close for his comfort. He jumped back, screamed something ugly and shot me the bird. Then he headed for his place.

I stopped two blocks down and around the corner. “Wait here,” Bitsey said. Then she got out and ran back down the street.

I made a mental note not to make her exercise anymore today. If her adrenaline was running as high as mine, she was burning calories at triple speed.

Unfortunately, waiting only seemed to increase my anxiety. I leaned over my comatose passenger. “Margaret? Margaret!” I shook her knee but she was a gone pecan. Her soft snores were even and deep, though. Thank goodness.

When another couple of minutes went by and neither Bitsey nor Cat showed up, I got out and ran to the corner. What I saw might have been a scene out of a Woody Allen movie. Bitsey was leaning against a fence as if she was poking a pebble out of her shoe.

Farther down the street the creep was talking to the lady from the window. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but she seemed pretty agitated. Her hands were flapping and she was pointing back at his house. Was she telling him what we’d done? Did she know Cat was still inside his house? Did he?

Then I saw Cat. She came out of a driveway two doors down from where Margaret had lived, and turned abruptly toward us. She was loaded down with a suitcase, some sort of gym bag and a couple of big plastic bags. So much stuff she was staggering. But she never stopped moving.

When Bitsey spied Cat, she turned back toward me and started walking, too. Meanwhile the lady from the window, who must have seen them both, just kept on talking and flapping her hands.

Bitsey reached me just as the creep broke away from his neighbor and headed for his place. The woman planted her fists on her hips and watched him go. Then she turned back toward us and waved. As realization dawned on me, I waved back.

“She helped us,” Bitsey said, waving, too. “She distracted him so Cat could get away.”

We took the bags from Cat, and she gave us each a hurried hug. “She told me to go through her backyard and into the next yard, too. That she’d keep him busy.” Cat turned for one last wave to our unexpected savior. “She said he was a fucking dickhead with a bad attitude. And that he couldn’t play the guitar for crap.”

I grinned. “Come on, let’s go.” And we ran for the car.

We couldn’t get out of Arizona fast enough. This was the day I deserved a ticket. Flying ninety miles per hour down I-10, I was ready to skip New Mexico altogether and go straight to west Texas. But there’s that little girls’ room thing, so late in the afternoon we pulled over at a speck on the map called Shuttlesworth. Margaret had hardly moved all afternoon, but we made her get up anyway.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Bitsey coaxed, wiping Margaret’s face with a napkin dipped in the chilly water in the ice chest.

Margaret flinched away. “Stop it,” she mumbled.

“Do it again,” Cat said. “I’m too old to be hauling people around. If she needs to pee she’ll have to get to the bathroom on her own.”

“Margaret, please, sweetie. Wake up.” Bitsey begged. This time she wiped Margaret’s wrists and arms with the cool cloth before moving to her neck and cheeks.

Margaret shifted, trying to get comfortable on the seat. “Leave me alone,” she muttered.

“Too bad y’all can’t put her in a cold shower like you did to me,” I said.

Cat slammed her car door.

Margaret jerked and opened her eyes. “What the fuck?” she mumbled, trying awkwardly to sit up.

“Margaret Anne!” Bitsey exclaimed. “Don’t you dare talk like that around your mother!”

“Mom?” The poor girl blinked and stared around her in confusion. “Mom? Where are we?”

“New Mexico,” Cat said, leaning in at the window. “But just for a bathroom break. Let’s go.”

“Go ahead,” I told Bitsey. “I’ll help Margaret.”

The girl was still woozy but she was able to get out of the car, and once pointed in the right direction, she managed to walk. “So,” I said. “What’re you on? Besides the Vicodin.”

“What do you mean?” She tried to look affronted and self-righteous, but she failed. With a shrug she conceded the truth. “What difference does it make?”

“You’re right,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. Alcohol, pills, weed. I’ve heard heroin’s a real trip. Ever tried it?”

“No.” She gave me a shocked look, this time sincere. “Geez, M.J., what do you think I am? Have you ever tried it?”

“No.”

Thank goodness that was the end of the drug talk. I mean, I know there are times when I drink too much. But after all, I’m a recent widow. That has to count for something. Besides, I’ve never used any illegal drugs. At least not in almost twenty years.

So we took care of business in the little girls’ room and headed back to the car. Bitsey was already sitting in the back seat. Cat had finished filling the tank. The question remained, would Margaret get back in?

She stared at the open door, then peered in at her mother. “Where are we?” she asked again.

“New Mexico,” Bitsey said.

“New Mexico!” Margaret straightened, then turned to stare back at the lowering sun. “But… But I’ve got to work tonight.”

“Not tonight, hon,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

She shook her head. “No. No, no, no. What’s going on? No way did I agree to this. What did you do, Mom? Kidnap me or something?”

When none of us said a thing her face got this stunned kind of scared look on it. She slammed the door shut. “Son of a bitch! You did kidnap me. Jesus!” She raked her hands through her hair and turned in an uneven circle.

Bitsey slid across the back seat and got out. “Now Margaret, listen to me.”

“No! What do you think I am, ten? Twelve? You can’t run my life anymore, Mom. I won’t let you.”

“And I won’t let some worthless excuse for a man beat you up!” Bitsey might have started off trying to be calm, but she had just lost it big-time.

“I explained about that. And anyway, he didn’t beat me up.”

“You’re lying, Margaret. If not to me, then to yourself. He’s not going to stop, so I’m going to stop him.”

The two guys who worked at the service station watched Margaret and Bitsey squaring off as if they didn’t know whether to enjoy the spectacle or break it up. Cat wasn’t nearly so hesitant. She hopped out of the car like a firecracker about to explode and thrust her cell phone at Margaret.

“Here. Call the creep. Tell him to come and get you.”

When Margaret just glared at her, she went on. “What’s the matter? Don’t you think he’ll come? Isn’t he your white knight, willing to come to your rescue no matter the odds? Surely he’ll battle three middle-aged busybodies to get you back.”

The girl’s face was as pale as ever, but two spots of color burned in her cheeks, nearly as red as the red streak of hair over her left eye. I held my breath waiting for Margaret to snap back with something too ugly for Cat to back down from.

Instead Margaret turned away, bent over and puked into the dirt.

All in all, it was the best thing that could have happened. While Bitsey helped Margaret, I dragged Cat away from them to cool down.

“That ungrateful little bitch,” Cat fumed.

“Come on, give her a break. She discovered she’s in New Mexico. How did you expect her to act?”

“Better than that.”

I tucked my arm in hers. “I wonder how you would’ve behaved at that age if your mother had done that to you.”

She shrugged me off. “Just shut up, M.J.” But there was no venom in her words. I had scored my point and, as usual, once she’d spouted off, Cat was cooling down.

Under the watchful eyes of the gas station guys we made our way back through the dusty heat to the waiting car. Bitsey raised her brows at us but said nothing.

“You okay?” I asked Margaret. She nodded and gave Cat a sidelong look. I nudged Cat.

“Sorry I went off on you,” she said to Margaret. “But I get a little crazy over the men-slapping-women-around thing.”

“But he doesn’t—”

“Save it, Margaret. I’ve been there and I’ve done that, and I can’t stand to see anybody else go through it.”

On that sober note we all got back into the car and headed east. Margaret slept again. Bitsey said that she’d agreed to spend the night with us but that tomorrow she was taking a bus back to Tempe.

“We’ll just see about that,” Cat said, gunning the motor. “We’ll just see.”

It took twenty-five miles and Tammy Wynette to settle us down. I don’t usually listen to country stations, but the choices were limited. Besides, there was something about our situation that called for the messy heartbreak of country music. So when “Stand by Your Man” came on and Cat started singing “Stand on your man,” the gray cloud hovering over us broke up and vanished.

Bits and I joined in, too, in our best Southern twang. “Stand on your man.”

“That’s me,” Cat said as Tammy kept on singing. “I stand on ’em. You two stand by them, and Margaret, too. But not me. Then I D.I.V.O.R.C.E. them.”

“Don’t act so smug,” Bitsey said. “You may cut and run, but only after they’ve stomped all over your heart.”

“Okay, okay. So we’ve all been stupid about men,” I said. “But isn’t that what this trip is about? Second chances?”

“Or third,” Cat said.

“No. It’s a second chance with your Boy Scout turned sheriff,” I said. “And Bitsey’s second chance with her Eddie.”

That’s when Cat’s eyes got big, and she gave me a sharp shake of her head. I didn’t understand why until Margaret shifted in the backseat, opened her eyes and stared at her mother. “Who’s Eddie?”

Bitsey

I wanted to kill Mary Jo. She should never have mentioned anything about Eddie, even if she thought Margaret was asleep. Even if she thought the girl was comatose.

But once the name was out of her mouth—Eddie—it hung in the air like the loud buzz of a faulty neon light. It sputtered and spat and wouldn’t go away.

“Mom?” Margaret said, and for a moment I was reminded of a seven-year-old Margaret who’d just been told by her older sister that there was no Santa Claus. “Who’s Eddie?” she repeated.

“Oh, Eddie.” I laughed and prayed I didn’t sound as nervous and guilty as I felt. “Eddie is the boy I went to the prom with. I told you about my high school reunion, didn’t I, sweetie? Well, that’s the whole point of this trip. I wasn’t going to go without your father,” I went on, talking much too loud and way too fast. I tried to slow down. “But he encouraged me to go anyway, and M.J. needed to get away after Frank died, and Cat wanted to visit her family. So we decided we’d all head down south together.”

Margaret stared at me; Tammy had subsided and now Randy Travis was singing “Forever and Ever, Amen.” Other than that, the car was absolutely silent.

“So…this Eddie was your date for the prom?”

“Yes,” I said. “And I’m praying he’s gained more weight than I have.” Again I laughed, but it was a strain.

“That’s why she’s been dieting,” M.J. jumped in, trying to help. “We’ve been working out together.”

“Yeah,” Cat added. “You’re too young to know this, but starting around the tenth high school reunion, looking slimmer and better dressed than the rest of your old classmates becomes a major motivator in a woman’s life.”

“I wasn’t going to go,” I repeated. “But M.J. convinced me I could lose twenty pounds by then. And I’m almost there.”

Margaret smiled then, and I wanted to breathe a huge sigh of relief. She said, “You’re looking good, Mom. I can see the difference already. This Eddie guy is gonna be sorry he ever let you get away. But I’m still mad at you,” she added. “You had no right to kidnap me. I could have you arrested, you know.”

I grabbed Cat’s shoulder before she could jump into the fray. This was between me and my daughter. “I have twenty-three years of right!” I said to Margaret, trembling with emotion. “I love you, Magpie. I always have and I always will. Even with your hair dyed black and streaked with red. If you ever have a daughter and find out she’s being abused, you’ll do the exact same thing.”

“I’m not being abused!”

God, but I wanted to shake her. Instead I tried to stroke her healing bruise, but she flinched away. I felt as if my heart were breaking. “Would you ignore a black eye on me?” I asked.

“That’s stupid. You don’t have a black eye—and neither do I.”

“You did. What would you think if I told you your father had given me a black eye?”

She shook her head. “Daddy would never do that.”

I gave her a grim smile. “My point exactly.”

She turned away from me, and the car sped on. Dusk fell before we pulled into a Motel 6 in a dusty town twenty miles or so from Las Cruces. I was exhausted, so when M.J. suggested a quick jog before supper, I didn’t even grace her with an answer. By silent assent Cat and Margaret took one room and M.J. and I took the adjoining one. I headed straight for the shower and only then did I fall apart. There was no real reason to cry. Tears never solved anything. How many times had my mother pointed that out in that brusque manner she always used with her supposed-to-be-perfect children? But as I undressed in the unblinking fluorescent glare and the unforgivingly mirrored confines of the bathroom, I couldn’t help it. No amount of dieting and exercise would ever erase the soft folds of my belly or the dimpled excess of my thighs. Arms, chin, jowls. I was fat. And even if I did lose all the weight I wanted, what would be left but saggy skin and shrinking breasts? Just gorgeous.

No wonder Jack found me so boring. No wonder my daughters didn’t look up to me as a role model. In the hot, enveloping steam of the pounding shower I cried and raged at the unfairness of it all. No wonder I felt so miserable all the time. I was miserable. A miserable, boring excuse of a woman.

I was in the shower so long that M.J. showered in Cat and Margaret’s room. I don’t know what kind of lecture Cat and M.J. had given Margaret, but by the time I was out, with my stupid short hair dry and spiky and sticking out like a teenager’s, they were all dressed and ready to go.

We piled into the car, heading for a Tex-Mex place the desk clerk had recommended, only the car wouldn’t start.

“Come on, baby,” M.J. crooned as she retried the ignition. “Come on, you can do it.” But the motor only sputtered and coughed in a vain effort to turn over and catch.

When M.J. finally gave up, Margaret started to laugh. “Serves you right. Now you’re stranded in nowhere New Mexico where they’ve probably never seen a Jag before, let alone tried to fix one.”

Thank goodness she was wrong. We ate at a diner across the street from the motel and discovered there was a mechanic who specialized in imported cars. As it turned out, nowhere New Mexico was a fairly with-it town. Though no Taos, it boasted a thriving artists’ and retirees’ community. The retirees all drove American with “These Colors Never Run” bumper stickers. The artists drove imports and I even saw three of those electric-gas hybrids.

First thing in the morning, a Eugene’s Imports tow truck came for the car. Over breakfast we discussed our options for the day. “Of course we’ll exercise,” M.J. told me. “Even though we missed out yesterday, you did very well with your caloric intake.”

I nodded as I ate my bowl of fruit with fat-free yogurt.

Cat stirred some sweetener—the pink stuff—into her second cup of coffee. “Sorry, M.J. Y’all can exercise, but I think I’ll check out the shops, maybe even buy a piece of outsider art. Who knows. I could discover the next great artist to sell to my clients, the ones with too much money and too little taste.”

“You ought to be nicer about your clients,” M.J. said. “If they had great taste they wouldn’t need to hire you.”

Cat shrugged and glanced at Margaret. “So. What are you going to do between now and the time the Greyhound leaves?”

My stomach clenched. She’d already checked the bus schedule?

Margaret yawned. “I don’t know. I saw a sign for an Internet Café last night. I might head over there. Check my e-mail. See if I still have a job.” She shot me a contemptuous look.

“She hates me,” I muttered to M.J. an hour later as the two of us stretched and warmed up for our jog. “Worse, she’s going back to that creep.”

“What can you do, besides cutting off the money?”

I shook my head. “Maybe her sisters can talk some sense into her.”

“But not Jack?”

“Oh, no.” I stretched my fingers toward the floor. “He’d have a fit.”

“Did you just touch your toes?”

I straightened and looked at M.J. “Did I?” I stared down my front. Breasts, belly and toes. I could see my toes without throwing my neck out of whack. Once more I bent down and sure enough, the tips of my fingernails flicked the tips of my Reebok trainers. I would have been ecstatic if I wasn’t so worried about my Magpie.

We jogged the length of the town, past a small brick school, an impressive town hall with a clock in the pediment and a combination firehouse, health clinic and sheriff’s office. It reminded me of the town in Back to the Future.

On the opposite side of a town square framed by gnarled cedar trees and underplanted with an impressive xeriscape garden, a row of wood-framed shops formed the downtown. We saw Cat inside a quaint art gallery haggling with a leather-faced woman and a man with a gray ponytail.

At least my face wasn’t all leathery, I told myself, and I wasn’t old enough to be an old hippie. But I was forty-eight and soon I’d be fifty. My kids didn’t need me anymore, and neither did my husband.

“Look,” M.J. said. She was barely perspiring. “There’s that Internet café. Why don’t we go in and say hi to Margaret? Better yet,” she amended, “You go. I’m going to do another fast mile back to the hotel. See you there.”

A good-looking cowboy type came out of the café as she trotted off. He was so intent on watching her that he nearly collided with me. I could just see the headlines: Rotund, Red-faced Woman Skewered on a Rodeo Buckle. But he dodged me, then gallantly held the café door open. I had no choice but to enter.

Inside it was cool. An iced coffee seemed like a good idea, but I hadn’t brought any money with me. So I scanned the high-tech decor and spotted Margaret at a back table, hunched over a glowing computer screen. I put on a determined smile. “Hi, sweetie.”

She glanced up, then back to the screen. “Hi.”

Okay. I cleared my throat. “Do you think you could treat me to something cool to drink? I forgot my wallet.”

She squinted at the screen, then briefly at me. “Sure.” With one foot she nudged her purse toward me while keeping her focus on the screen. “When you get back I have something to show you.”

I had visions of some diatribe e-mail from her employer, or perhaps the section of the Arizona legal code pertaining to kidnappings. What she showed me when I sat down beside her, however, was a Web site for my high school class reunion. “This is it, right?” she asked.

“Yes. Wow.” After a page about the reunion particulars all the seniors’ photos were displayed.

“There’s you,” Margaret said. “Look at that hair.”

“And every bit of it natural. Well, maybe a little lemon juice to brighten it a bit,” I conceded.