Chapter Text
February 1971
Frannie drools against my shoulder as I haul her up to her mama’s porch, and I can already tell it’s going to leave a wet spot on my second-best button-up. Ruefully, I think she’s getting real big to be carried, and then I remember Soda saying that about Ponyboy after we brought him home from the hospital, get that tight, electric clench in my heart that comes with those memories of him. It won’t be long before I put her down for the last time.
“Her hair is a mess,” Judy clucks as she takes her out of my arms, and a cord of muscle by the side of my mouth twitches. I still don’t know shit about how to do little girl hair, I swear it sticks straight up above her head whenever I try, in braids and pigtails that make her look like a TV with too many antennas. I never knew shit about little girls, period, which is probably why Jasmine ran off with a drug dealer and doesn’t return my calls. “Come to Mama, sweetheart, she’s gonna comb this out and get you a nice bow with pink lace, won’t you like that—“
“She looks fine,” I say defensively, though she looks like I pulled her through a hedge backwards. Defensively, because I had to spend a king’s ransom to get more custody than ‘weekends at the mother’s discretion’, defensively, when I got not-so-subtle suggestions that the best thing to do would be to taper off my presence in my daughter’s life. Like hell. “She had a good time, all right? I took her out on her trike today, she wore herself out.” Fell off twice, too, and didn’t give up crying even after she scraped her knees raw— something I’m sure Judy will raise hell about, too, once she notices. Me, I’ve never been prouder of my girl.
I’m only dropping her off for two days, with our schedule, but it still kills me that I won’t see her for those whole two days. I fuss with her overnight bag with FDC monogrammed in pink thread, unzip it to make sure everything’s in there, though I already know it is and Judy’s place is just a twenty-five-minute drive away; Judy’s mama will never let me hear the end of it, if I so much as forgot a pair of unicorn-patterned underwear back at mine. That little curl of her upper lip that says what can you expect, when he grew up on that side of town?
(FDC standing for Francesca Dawn Curtis. We argued over it for days: I wanted to name my daughter after Mom, she told me that ‘Frances’ was too old-fashioned for a child of the seventies, and that I could name anything I managed to push out whatever I damn well pleased. We settled on Francesca and she got a trendy middle name in and she still looked like she was sucking on a lemon the whole time the birth certificate was being filled out. That wasn’t why she left me, but it was probably lurking in the back of her mind as she filed the papers.)
We stand there, awkwardly, Frannie dead to the world and balanced on Judy’s jutted-out hip. She isn’t wearing any makeup, a sheen of cold cream slathered all over her face, and seeing her like this feels more intimate than most of our final year of marriage. I could be dropping her off after a date and hoping to sneak a kiss, half-expect her dead father to come out and remind me that it’s past her curfew. “You can come in,” she finally says. “I’ll get Francesca down in bed… there’s still some coffee on the stove, and Minka made kolaches, the good ones with the apricot jam and nuts.”
I’m tempted, because Minka really does make fantastic kolaches and I’ll eat anything I don’t have to cook, but the reminder that Judy has a housekeeper stops me dead in my tracks— the reminder that she had fun slumming it for a couple of years, but now she’s safe at home again, where she belongs. “I should be gettin’ back already,” I say, fiddling with my overly starchy collar, though I have nothing and nobody to be getting back to, besides some reheated pad thai. Hell, maybe I should think about buying a dog.
“Are you settlin’ into the new place okay?”
I sold the old house after Jasmine had her kid and wasn’t really asking anybody’s permission. It somehow didn’t feel right that I’d kept it and sent Judy packing to her mother’s, my pre-marital property or not; more importantly, if I didn’t sell it at that point, I was going to get rid of it when I snapped and lit the place on fire one day. The doorstep where we’d found out about Mom and Dad, the pantry I’d had to tell Ponyboy’s dirty hippie ass to quit stealing soap out of, the screen door Soda kicked in after I changed the locks… I needed all of it gone. I needed to know I wasn’t going to be trapped in the tar pit of my past forever, even if I was only moving to the next suburb over.
I’m thinking about college again, too. Nothing remotely impressive, just registering for a couple of accounting classes over at the local JC; I don’t know if I want to quit the construction business, now that I’ve finally made it up to foreman, but back when I was working two jobs I’d been a half-decent bookkeeper, and it seemed like as good a place to start as any. I’m not ready to tell anybody, least of all her, about my daydreams of having my own company— I can barely let myself indulge in it for a few moments after my head’s hit the pillow—
Judy’s blinking at me, still expecting an answer. “New place is fine,” I say roughly, “still need to measure for curtains—“ I have blankets covering the windows in the living room, which is getting way too ‘divorced dad’ even for me— “but I like it. They’ve even got a Will Rogers Memorial Museum, in case I start feeling too homesick.” I’m not particularly. I never knew how nice it was to have an actual yard, or to fall asleep without a serenade of stray gunshots and drunk neighbors as your lullabye.
“Are you seein’ anybody?”
“No!” In the same way I can be rough without meaning to, I’m not always the best at modulating my volume. Frannie stirs, lets out a bubble of drool, settles back in Judy’s arms like she never heard me. “What, are you?”
I expect her to deny it, but then a blush starts spreading across that peaches and cream complexion, and I already know the answer. Worse, I can feel the tiniest hint of heat rise in my own ears. “Yeah, he’s the editor’s son over at the World— do you remember Tanner Dutton at all? He was a couple of years ahead of us, I think…”
I do remember Tanner Dutton. He was a real prick— then again, back in high school, I was too. I wonder how much he’s changed that a greaser’s ex-wife with a toddler leftover from the marriage is an appealing option, or how low his standards have sunk since his football days. Then I want to smack myself for thinking about my ex-wife that way in the first place. “So long’s he’s a good guy, I’m fine with it,” I say, nails curled into my palms, like what I’m fine with or not even matters anymore.
“You need to get out more, Darry,” she says bluntly, fussing with the damp hair curling around the nape of her neck. The refrain of every friend I’ve had since I was about twenty years old, and it ripples through me like a shockwave to remember that I only just turned twenty-six— I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes since then, that like the Ship of Theseus, there’s nothing left of who I used to be. “It’s been over for a long time between us, the ink on the paperwork’s long dry, and there’s seriously been nobody?”
“I ain’t got time to date,” I say, rolling my eyes, which was still my go-to line when her suntan-oiled self crawled into my bed at George’s lakeside cabin, until her little manicured hand slipped past the waistband of my briefs and silenced all my half-hearted protests. Life’s got a real way of filling up my calendar whenever I try to take a second to breathe.
She cocks an eyebrow, always more perceptive than I’m willing to give her credit for. “You’ve got three days a week free and clear, last I checked, so—“
My jaw locks, then starts a slow grind, when I realize she’s not giving up. I never let go of anything I didn’t leave toothmarks and dried-up spit on first, is the trouble. The last thing I’ve ever considered myself is a quitter, and divorcing after three years of marriage is about as close to the definition as you can get; my parents, for all the endless hell they gave each other, made it all the way to twenty, and theirs got cut short. It’s not even that easy to get one. Judge ruled that staying married to me was just too intolerable for any woman to bear.
Now I’m paying penance for it, like the good Presbyterian my mama tried and didn’t halfway succeed at raising. “You’re the one who claimed we got irreconcilable differences— you want to subject another woman to me now?”
“I didn’t divorce you because I think you’re a bad guy—“
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I always said I wouldn’t argue in front of my kids— Mom and Dad did it so often, and so openly, all four of us knew how to play them against each other like pros— but that resolution’s already long since been blown straight to hell. At least Frannie isn’t awake to register it right now. “It wasn’t all on you,” she says, and for one crazy second, I want to lick the stray cold cream off the side of her neck. Bring her back into my arms and tell her that we can start over again, carry her past the threshold of a new house, do it all right this time. “I know I wasn’t half of what you needed in a wife—“
“June Cleaver would’ve run screaming, if she had to be half of what I needed in a wife,” I admit, and she stutters out a laugh in return.
“You really helped me to grow up, Darry,” she says, and sure, she means it as a compliment, even as her words sink to the bottom of my stomach. I’m the training wheels on my daughter’s bike, the roadblock before she gets to reach her happy ending. “I was so naive before we got married, Jesus, I could barely boil a pot of water by myself. I never knew just how much I was capable of doing… how much I could take care of.”
And God knows that’s what every woman wants from her man. A sobering lesson in self-reliance.
“Judy, who’s at the— oh, goodness, Darry, there you are.” Mrs. Baker comes to the door and scoops Frannie out of her arms, pressing her face into her pastel pink dressing gown; a cloud of Chanel No. 5 hits my nose with the force of the WRHS smoking courtyard. Her smile couldn’t be more fake if she was in a hostage video. “Now, bless your heart, don’t you remember I showed you how to do that French braid on her? And didn’t I put a pack of Mickey Mouse barrettes in her stocking last Christmas?”
Getting back into my truck and cranking the ignition, I massage my temples and swear I feel a migraine coming on like a summer storm, skull sinking into the headrest. If I close my eyes, I can still remember the girl she used to be, her blonde ponytail drenched in so much hairspray she posed to a threat to the ozone layer, strutting around in those cute little skirts on game day. Darrel Curtis and Judith Baker, Boy of the Year and head cheerleader— we had a full page spread in the Class of ‘63 yearbook. Everybody figured we’d end up married right after graduation, ourselves included, until our blow-out breakup before senior prom. We should’ve had enough sense to leave that particular fairytale behind in high school.
I don’t want her back. But I don’t want her to not want me back, either. And trying to untangle this particular knot is going to require a beer or two, at minimum.
The Sirloin Steakhouse is packed cheek-to-jowl tonight, and I’ve got no reason to be here with a sticky menu in hand, besides not wanting to head back to an empty house and start defrosting a TV dinner. For about the first time in my life, I’ve got the opportunity to be alone, and it unsettles me more than I relish the chance to finally enjoy some damn peace and quiet. Not that I’m getting company in a restaurant full of strangers, but at least I can hear the sound of a voice that isn’t my own, or Archie Bunker’s.
A little girl in the next booth knocks over a glass of milk shoving her brother, and her mother’s low, menacing command to shape up almost makes me wince. I even wish I could be bawling Frannie out for something right now, as long as she was here with me.
“Hi, welcome to— Darry? Is that you?”
The waitress is staring at me when I look up from debating whether I want a ribeye, and expectantly, too. “You must’ve mistaken me for someone else,” I say on reflex, even though the state’s not swarming with 6’2 guys and she just got my name right. Was I complaining about being lonely, a moment ago? I moved miles outside Tulsa city limits and I still can’t blend into a crowd for shit.
“You don’t remember me,” she goes on to say, like I’m supposed to. Even looks disappointed, which is making me wonder if at just-turned-twenty-six, my memory is already starting to go. “I’m Lydia— Lydia Huscher?” Her plastic nametag confirms as much. “From the neighborhood?”
It still takes me another moment to process it. She’s a lot prettier now that her front teeth have grown in, not that I love myself for thinking it; blonde hair cut above her shoulders, big brown eyes like a doe’s. “We used to go wading for crawfish all the time, when we were kids,” she adds with a smile that’s already turning self-conscious. “You know, before you moved, anyway.”
Right. Back in the old house, when we moved from Lubbock, so cramped Soda was sleeping in my dresser drawer. Back before Dad was dealing again, back before he was in jail. Back before I hit high school, and would’ve rather dropped dead than copped to being friends with a girl. “No, I do, I’m sorry.” No shit, it’s Lydie, wild horses couldn’t have dragged us apart when we were seven. Soda would’ve jumped right into some anecdote about riding four-wheelers and banging up elbows and knees— Soda would’ve been the one to wave her over. “I’m sorry,” I say again, me, notoriously terrible with apologies. “How’ve you been?”
“Good, I’m just fine,” she says, less than genuinely. “Keepin’ busy, that’s for sure. High school, you didn’t go to—“
“I was at Will Rogers—“
“And I was at Central,” she cuts off, “before I came out here for— you know what, it doesn’t matter, you likin’ it out in the sticks?”
“Just needed a change of pace from the city,” I say, taking a too-large gulp from my water glass, “it’s more peaceful here, for sure. I like bein’ able to leave the door unlocked because there ain’t any thieves, not because I’ve got nothin’ to steal.”
We stare at each other politely for the next five seconds, give or take. Memories flash through my mind in a kaleidoscope. Her mother wasn’t any good. “You still ride?” I ask, piecing that much together; in Oklahoma, plenty of kids are on horseback not long after they start walking. The only thing Maureen could ever stay sober for was to drive her to junior rodeo.
She grins at me, all of a sudden, one that splits her face clean across. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Fingers snap from behind us. “Sweetheart,” some geezer calls out, “you’re a real piece of work, ain’t you? Is my Budweiser comin’ any time soon?” He starts huffing and puffing like a last-century locomotive, leaning so far out of his seat he’s close to falling out of it. “Back in my day, you got quick service with a smile, swear this country’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket—“
“Ribeye and a house beer’s good,” I say quickly. We share a look only two people who’ve been forced to deal with the general public can. “And take your time,” I add, loud enough to carry.
I find her leaning against the side of the building as I head to my car, a half-smoked cigarette between her fingers that she angrily stubs out. “You okay?” I ask. She looks worn-out, weatherbeaten, in a coat with tattered fur trim hanging off the hood. Most East side girls get that look to them around age twelve— and that’s what she’ll always be, no matter where she’s moved out to now.
“My car’s in the shop,” she says, flustered and scrubbing her hand down her face, “Arlene was supposed to give me a ride, but she went out ‘skiing’ with our line cook Juan… I’m fine, I’ll just walk, I guess. The bus stop ain’t that far.”
One of her tennis shoes has a piece of duct tape keeping the sole on, and the sun’s already long since gone down. I make my decision without hardly giving it much thought. “I’ll take you home. There’s all sorts of junkies that hang around there at night, it ain’t safe.”
A regular knight in shining armor, leading her to my noble steed, a truck whose best days were behind it back in ‘65. I’m a strange man she hasn’t seen in the past decade and a half, bundling her into my passenger seat— if I were her, I might just decide to take my chances with the local smack fiends. “You really don’t have to…” She stares up at the moonless sky and sighs. “There, I was polite about it. I can never turn down anything anybody gives me for free.”
Janis Joplin singing the story of her and Bobby McGee fills the gaping holes in our conversation; namely, our mutual embarrassment with the way our lives have turned out, which is leaving us with a pretty limited amount of topics. “My boy’s with my sister tonight,” she finally says, “he’s sleepin’ over with his cousins. At least I don’t have to worry about pickin’ him up, on top of everything else.”
She looks at me like she’s daring me to judge, the son, the bare ring finger. “Just dropped my daughter off with her mama.” Years ago, I would’ve, but I’ve got no room to now. “Place feels real empty, don’t it?”
I pull into her driveway before she can answer; the shotgun house is rundown, chipped paint on the front and a roof I can tell at a glance needs a good reshingling, but she keeps the porch and the lawn real neat. “Thank you so much, Darry, you really didn’t have to do this,” she says in one breath, grabbing her purse from underneath the seat. Then her voice goes down a notch, she’s halfway out of the car when she turns back to me. “Do you want to come inside for a drink?” she asks, hand braced on the headrest. “I’ve got some whiskey left over, tequila, if that’s more your speed…”
“You don’t need to thank me like that,” I start spouting off, idiotically, “what kind of asshole do you think I am? Payin’ me back for thirty-six cents’ worth of gas….” I don’t even want to take gas money from a chick, especially one who’s clearly not doing too hot in the finance department and has a mechanic’s bill coming down the pike. Doubt she had a man with her to keep them from racking up the price tag, either.
Her disbelieving gaze swoops over me, hits like a pair of high beams to the face— in my defense, the last time a woman I wasn’t married to made a move on me, I was turning twenty-one and falling in bed with a chick Two-Bit had to set me up with. (Two-Bit’s stationed in North Carolina now and, last I heard, would rather chew and shit broken glass back out than see another Curtis, after what Soda said to the pint-sized Vietnamese wife he brought home. I can’t even blame him, as much as I miss him. At this point, the only masochist still dumb enough to be wrangling Soda is me.)
“It’s the seventies now,” she says, condescending and a little teasing all at once. She smells like Amber Musk and Camel Blues, when she leans over the console to kiss me; I don’t think she even owned a hairbrush when we were kids. “I wasn’t expectin’ to just do you a favor.”
She says it like a goad and that’s how I take it, too, biting down on her lower lip and getting a stifled moan out of her; I think about getting her long legs over my shoulders, in a minute, and it’s a thought I want to indulge. She’s wallowing in everything I’ve been trying to run from since I was about thirteen years old, but I’m not looking for love tonight, and I doubt she is either. I let her lead me inside.