Bombshells, page 18
I feel Clay’s gaze on me. “C’mon,” I say to him. “Let’s show these kids how this is done.”
He puts down the glass and rolls up his shirtsleeves. “All right.”
I’m surprised at the flutter of excitement I feel when he stands just inches away from me. It’s crazy. He’s my brother-in-law. We’re just dancing with the kids in his living room.
But when the music begins and we start to move together, I suddenly see that things could have been different. Clay could have been my husband, and these beautiful girls and that darling baby could have been mine. I could have had this life that seems to make Norah mad.
It’s not fair. When we all met, Clay was up for grabs. But Michael caught my attention with his dangerous good looks and his bad boy attitude. Clay was so ordinary. Boring.
Look at us all now.
Michael is dead from that awful car crash. Norah is sleepwalking through life. And Clay isn’t boring at all. He’s a good husband, a good father. A very handsome man.
I move closer, almost close enough to “dirty twist.” His gaze locks with mine, and I see that he’s feeling vulnerable. Maybe he’s thinking about the newscast, realizing that we all might be close to the end. That there may not be many more chances to really live.
I back away a bit. “You still haven’t taken my car out for a spin.”
“Maybe in the morning.”
“Sure. There shouldn’t be many cops out on a Sunday morning when all the fine folks are in church.”
“Are you planning for us to go drag racing?”
Laughing, I shake my head. “A little time in the fast lane is all.”
He smiles. I’ve made Clay smile, despite all his worries.
When the song ends, Birdie flops on the sofa. She’s asleep in minutes. “Look. Li’l Bird is gone. Such a party pooper. It’s only nine o’clock.”
“Nine?” Steph says. “I’ve got to go home, too. Curfew stinks.”
“Can I walk her halfway home, Daddy?”
“Sure, Mellie. I’ll put Birdie to bed.” Clay scoops his child up and carries her through the hall door.
When he returns, I’m fanning myself. “God, it keeps getting hotter in here.”
“It does.” Clay unbuttons his long sleeved shirt. His chest muscles are outlined beneath his white undershirt.
Mellie comes back in through the front door and cool air streams in behind her. I say, “Maybe we should leave the door open for a while.
"We still have mosquitoes here, Aunt Lola. Mama doesn’t want DC to get bites.” Mellie closes the door behind her.
“I hope you don’t mind, Lola, but I’m going to take this shirt off.”
“Go right ahead, Clay.” I pour more vodka and orange juice into the pitcher. When I turn back to hand Clay a glass, I freeze for a second.
Clay’s gaze drops from my eyes, roves slowly over my breasts and drops to my hips. The air changes. It seems thinner, compressed somehow, like it feels just before a storm.
Clay shoves his hair back from his forehead and sips his drink. Focusing on his daughter, he asks, “Are you hot too, Melanie?”
I know what he’s doing. He’s reminding himself that he has a family.
Mellie yawns. “A little. I think I’ll rest for a minute.” She grabs the folded newspaper from the floor and lies on the couch, fanning herself slowly.
Downing the rest of my screwdriver, I shuffle through the records. “Maybe we should slow things down a little. How about a samba, Clay?”
Clay walks over to Mellie and strokes her sweaty hair from her forehead. She gives him a sleepy smile.
“I should turn in now,” he says. “It’s been a long day.”
He’s reminding himself again. Power surges through me. I make him need to remember.
I don’t want him to go to Norah. Not yet. “It’s still early. You can’t leave me to finish a whole pitcher of screwdrivers by myself.” I put the record on. The music will make him stay for one more dance, I know. One more song I can pretend through. “Maybe if we turn some of these lights down it’ll cool off a bit.”
I switch off the lamp and the kitchen light. Only the TV lamp, the small light behind the horse statue, remains on. With its greenish glow and the softer music, the room does feel cooler.
I take his fingers in mine and stroke my other hand up his arm, finally resting my hand on his shoulder. Sighing, Clay puts his palm on my waist. I step closer until his heat surrounds me. My eyes drift closed, and I sway against his firm chest, his flat belly, his hard thighs.
MELANIE
I stop fanning myself with the folded newspaper. It doesn’t really help. Since Lola turned out all the lights, I can’t read the paper, either. I know from looking at it earlier in the day the words Castro and Cuba take up almost the whole top half of the front page. There are grainy photos of an island, supposedly taken by our spy planes. I can’t believe the jets we see flying over us can take a picture from so far away. But, there’s proof in black and white. The caption says the long tube-like things are missiles.
Bombs.
Just ninety miles from Florida’s coastline. Only three hundred and fifty miles from my home.
I close my eyes. The sighing rhythm of the saxophone music almost lulls me to sleep. I open my eyes every few seconds to keep from nodding off. Flickering snapshot impressions of the room mix with the half dreams in my head.
In the first image, Daddy looks like a man I don’t know. His tight, sleeveless undershirt sticks to his damp skin. The muscles in his arms and shoulders glisten with sweat. As he moves to the jazz tune, his hips sway in the pleated slacks he wore to work today.
I blink, and that snapshot changes to reveal Aunt Lola, her head tipped back, her lips moist and parted. She strokes her fingers up and down Daddy’s arms, dragging her fingertips as if she can’t bear to lose the feeling of his skin under her fingers.
I doze, and those glimpses give way to images of missiles resting in dark metal cradles beneath green palm trees. Brooke and Robert walk between the huge, sleeping monsters on their way to the beach. I can tell they’re heading for a swim, because they trail beach towels behind them in the sand.
I don’t want Robert to be with Brooke the same way I don’t want Daddy to be with Lola. It’s not right, but I can’t do anything about it.
The music changes, and my eyes open a slit to see the next snapshot. Daddy and Lola stand so close together, no light shows between their bodies. They’re a shadowy silhouette against the greenish light behind them. Lola’s head rests on Daddy’s shoulder; her lips brush his bare neck. Her hands trail up his arms until her fingertips slip into the short hair on the back of his head.
Daddy’s hands rest low on the top of Lola’s hips, his fingers making gentle indentations where he pulls her tight against him.
I struggle to stay awake but my heavy eyelids slide down again and again. The image of Daddy and Lola pressing against each other doesn’t make sense, I think sleepily. What I want is Robert. My eyes close and my mind chases after him.
I want to see the Robert who sat on the porch with me. The Robert who walked me home and kissed me softly, like a real boyfriend. I know it wasn’t real, but I want it to be, more than anything.
Love seems to be both real and imagined. After all, how do I know it exists? I mean I know I love my mother and father. I even love Birdie, most of the time, anyway. Maybe I love Robert. I want to love Robert.
I know Mama and Daddy love each other. What does it mean that my father is holding Aunt Lola so close? Letting her kiss his neck?
It isn’t love.
I blink again, trying to keep my eyes open. I know this is important. I have to pay attention.
Lola eases away slightly, allowing the tiniest bit of space between her and Daddy, and whispers something I can’t hear. Daddy nods. The music stops.
Okay. They aren’t dancing anymore. I can rest. The silence lulls me back toward my dream of Robert. We sit on a porch, eating banana Popsicles and watching the waves roll up on the golden sand. There are no missiles, no roaring jets, no crying babies, just Robert’s voice, rich like melting ice cream.
But there’s a baby crying, pushing me out of the dream. It’s DC.
I bolt up from the couch. The living room is dim and empty. The record player’s needle popping and scratching is the only sound. Daddy and Lola are nowhere to be seen.
DC cries out again.
I close the hall door behind me and then tiptoe toward Mama’s room, hoping Daddy is there to get DC before he wakes up Mama. But their door is still closed and no light shows beneath it.
When I swing it open, Mama’s curled on her side, facing away from DC’s bassinet, so tired she doesn’t even hear the baby. Her lips puff with each snoring breath.
Tiptoeing to the bassinet, I lift DC and grab a clean, cloth diaper from the basket beside it. He quiets a little and snuffles against my neck, looking for his milk. We slip out of the room.
I change him on the sofa bed Aunt Lola uses. The overhead light glares, and I rub my eyes to clear away the sleep fog. Lola’s red satin pajamas lie across the spread, and her black satin pillowcase gleams in the light. The room smells like her perfume and cigarettes.
DC squirms a little while I change his diaper.
Holding him close, I say silly words to him like Mama does and head to the kitchen to get him a bottle. I open the hall door and freeze.
What I see explodes through me as savagely as a bomb.
Daddy’s kissing Aunt Lola.
He holds her tight in his arms. His hands push her blouse up and he fingers the black lace of her bra.
Lola’s hands disappear into the waistband of Daddy’s slacks, sliding around to the belt buckle.
All of this registers in a split second. I tense and squeeze DC. He wails, sending Daddy and Aunt Lola skidding apart.
They stare at me, eyes wide and slightly unfocused. Their lips glisten, red and damp. Their hands, at first dangling at their sides, flap into business. Daddy tucks in his undershirt and straightens his pants.
Lola adjusts her bra and blouse.
Aunt Lola speaks first. “We thought you’d gone to bed.” Her words, low and husky, break the spell that froze me to the hallway floor.
The fear that was always outside my home, the fear of whistling missiles destroying my family, has been replaced with something more terrifying.
President Kennedy and the Navy can’t defend me against this. No guns can stop it. No peace treaty can change it.
Daddy shoves his hair back and comes toward me. I tuck DC closer, hunching my shoulders to protect him from this new, terrible danger.
I can’t look at Daddy or Aunt Lola. It hurts too much, like looking at the sun too long. The sight of them kissing seems burned into my vision, because when I close my eyes, there they are, bright against my eyelids.
“I’ll go check on Norah,” Daddy says, and starts toward the hall, but Mama meets him at the half-opened door.
“What’s happening?” Sleepily, she looks from Daddy to Lola to DC and me.
When no one answers, she strides through the room to the kitchen where I stand with DC wailing on my shoulder.
“Mel, why do you have DC?” She takes him out of my arms, automatically checking his diaper. “You already changed him?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I duck my head and focus on setting up the bottle warmer. “I’m heating the bottle like you showed me this afternoon.”
She holds DC and glances from me to Daddy, then to Lola. Lola drains the last of her drink. Mama looks like she’s working hard to figure out what’s going on, but she’s awfully sleepy.
Finally, she nods. “I still need to nurse him a little, but bring the bottle back to my room when it’s warm. Thank you for your help, Mellie. I can always count on you.” She shuffles down the hall, patting DC on the back.
The three of us stand in the kitchen. We stare at each other.
I feel like words, horrible, hateful words—curses—the nastiest things I can think of, are shooting from my eyes like sparks. I wish I could do that. I wish I could burn both of them with the bolts of hate and anger blasting through my brain. They need to be punished.
But I don’t know what to do.
Daddy’s expression looks shattered. His shoulders slump and his body seems to shrink right before my eyes. His fingers stretch and curl like he needs to shake off the feel of Lola’s skin.
I imagine—I hope—that the words bubbling in his mind are, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. But he doesn’t say anything.
Aunt Lola looks like she does when she’s about to cut a donut while driving her convertible. If Lola does it, it can’t be wrong. Her expression says she was just having fun. She doesn’t seem to understand what all the fuss is about.
She picks up her cigarette case from the counter and lights one. Exhaling a stream of white smoke, she plucks a loose shred of tobacco from her tongue. I know she thinks she never does anything dangerous enough to hurt anybody.
This time she did, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive her.
Finally, Daddy says, “You both go on to bed. I’ll take the bottle to Norah and clean this up.”
Aunt Lola touches the corner of her mouth. Her lipstick looks old and faded. “Well, goodnight, then.” She crushes the just-lit cigarette in the ashtray and starts toward the bathroom.
Daddy leaves with the baby’s bottle. I watch his bent back and caved-in shoulders as he passes through the door.
Licking my lips, I taste the gooey remains of Aunt Lola’s Pink Passion lipstick. The image of our faces, side by side and identical in the hand mirror, flashes in my mind.
She did this. Like a rock dropped in a pond, the damage seems to grow in bigger and bigger circles. How will Mama bear the hurt and betrayal? Nothing will ever be the same.
Another surge of pure hatred flares through me.
I tear the pins from my hair and toss them on the kitchen counter, then scratch my fingers across my scalp to destroy Lola’s ratting. Leaning over the sink, I splash water on my face. I rip a paper towel from the roll and scrub at the eye shadow and mascara, scour the lipstick from my mouth, until my lips feel raw. The white paper oozes with black and blue and faded scarlet.
I’m still in the kitchen when Daddy comes back. “Go on to bed,” he says, like nothing happened. Like the whole world hasn’t changed.
“Why?”
He sighs. “Because I said so.”
Only a few minutes ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do what he told me to. But everything’s changed. Something has clicked inside me that tells me I don’t have to do what he says any longer. He’s lost that right.
I look at him, knowing my own face looks like a horror show. I feel like a horror show. Grimly, I say, “No.”
Daddy stares at me. “What?” His face appears broken, but I can tell he’s working hard to put the pieces back together. “I said go to bed, young lady.”
I pick up the pitcher of orange juice and shove it in the refrigerator. “Why did you do that, Daddy?”
He braces his hands on the sink and hangs his head. He reminds me of a building in the movies about Germany after the war. You can tell it was once a building, but you can’t decide what it looked like before the bombs.
He straightens and turns around, swiping his hand through his hair. “You’re too young to understand, Melanie.”
“Daddy, you did something wrong.” I decide that since things are never going to be the same, I should say what I think.
“Listen, you can’t understand this. There are things that happen that a man just can’t control. Forces of nature.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re just a kid. Things happen between a man and woman. A man can’t help himself. It’s in his nature.” He slams his hand against the edge of the sink. “Damn it, I didn’t want to do it.”
There! Those are the words I need to hear. But it doesn’t help. It doesn’t change anything. I just stare at him, trying to make sense of it all. If he didn’t want to do it, then what happened? Is he blaming this all on Aunt Lola?
I know she can be cruel, even when she says she loves you. I know that from personal experience. But he could have stopped her. In my heart, I know that Daddy could have stopped, if he’d wanted to. He hadn’t wanted to.
That thought breaks my last restraint. I need to lash out at him, to hurt him like he hurt me. Like Mama will be hurt.
Tears burn my eyes. “Are you saying this is all Aunt Lola’s fault? That Aunt Lola did that all by herself?”
“Melanie, Lola just kept pushing and pushing. A woman who wears tight pants and rubs up against a man wants one thing. Like that damned red underwear: it’s a signal, a sign. She’s real damn lucky I didn’t give her what she asked for.”
“What was she asking for?” I want to grab the words back into my mouth. My belly tightens and I feel sick. I don’t want to know anymore. I just want to forget tonight ever happened. If only I could.
“I swear, Mellie, I don’t want to hurt your mama. Or you. Let’s not say anything, okay? Some things are better kept secret.” His pleading eyes glisten, like he’s about to cry.
I’ve never seen Daddy cry. Ever. If he cries, I feel like…I don’t know. It will be like day and night changed places. Like the world turned upside down.
He clears his throat and says, “I’ll make Aunt Lola leave early in the morning.” His gaze meets mine. “You need to go to bed, Mellie.” He walks away.
I stand in the kitchen, scrubbing my face with paper towels until my skin feels raw.
LOLA
As I disappear into the girls’ tiny pink bathroom, I wish I hadn’t wasted that cigarette in the kitchen. I need it now. My hands are shaking and cold sweat trickles down my spine.
Oh, God. What did I just do?
The grim disappointment on Melanie’s face haunts me. And Clay’s shattered expression.
