The back door of the library was unlocked. She turned the knob soundlessly. Inside, a radio played softly and a dim fog of light showed at the far end of the narrow back hall. On tiptoe Lula crept its length, paused at the end to peer into the poorly lit main room of the library. He had only one light on, and the blackout curtains drawn. A stroke of luck-privacy!
He was working with his back to her, squatting down on one knee, peering up at the underside of a table with a screwdriver in his hand, whistling along with "I Had the Craziest Dream." Lula silently slipped off her shoes, left them beside the checkout desk and crossed the room on catfeet.
Stopping close behind him, she could smell his hair tonic. It set her nostrils quivering and her private muscles twitching. As usual, Lula followed the instincts of her body, not her brain. She didn’t stop to figure that you don’t blind-side a jumpy ex-Marine who’s fought on Guadalcanal, whose reaction time is quick, whose instincts are deadly and who’s been trained in the art of survival. He looked good, he smelled good, and he was going to feel good, she thought, as with a feminine, gliding motion she moved in and began slipping her hands around his trunk.
His elbow flew back and rammed her in the gut. He lurched to his feet, spun, knocked her off-kilter, landed a deadly blow on the side of her neck and slammed her to the floor, where she slid six feet before coming to a stop wrapped around the leg of a table.
"What the hell are you doing in here!" he exploded.
Lula couldn’t talk, not with the breath knocked from her.
"Get up and get out of here!"
I can’t, she tried to say, but her jaws flapped soundlessly. She curled up and hugged her stomach.
War had taught Will that life was too precious to squander in any way, even a few precious moments spent with people you didn’t like. He stomped over and jerked Lula roughly to her feet. "What you got to learn, Lula, is that I’m a happily married man and I don’t want what you’re sellin’.So get out and leave me alone!"
Doubled over, she stumbled several steps. "You… hit… me… you bastard!" she managed between gulps.
He had her by the hair so fast he nearly left her leg makeup on the floor.
"Don’t you ever call me that!" he warned from behind clenched teeth.
"Bastard, put me down!" she screamed as he held her aloft.
Instead he raised her higher. "Whore!"
"Bastard!"
"Whore!"
"Owww! Put me down!"
He opened his hand and she fell like a piece of wet laundry.
"Git out and never come sniffin’ around me again, you hear? I had enough of your kind when I was too damn dumb to know the difference! Now I got a good woman, a good one, you hear?" He picked her up by the front of the dress, slammed her to her feet and nudged her roughly from behind-nine times-all the way to the back door, snatching up her shoes on the way. He fired the shoes like two orange grenades into the alley, pushed her outside and offered in parting, "If you’re in heat, Lula, go yowl beneath somebody else’s window!"
The door slammed and the lock clicked.
Lula glared at it and hollered, "Goddamn you, you peckerhead! Just who do you think you’re knockin’ around!" She kicked the door viciously and sprained her big toe. Clutching it, she screamed louder, "Peckerhead! Asshole! Toad-suckin’ Marine! Your dick prob’ly wouldn’t fill my left ear anyway!"
With tears and black mascara streaking her face, Lula hobbled down the steps, retrieved her shoes and limped away.
She arrived back home enraged and marched straight to the telephone.
"Seven-J-ring-two!" she yelled, then waited impatiently with the black candlestick mouthpiece tapping against her chest, the earpiece pressed above her orange flamingo-feather earring.
After two rings she heard, "H’llo?"
"Harley, this is Lula."
"Lula," he whispered warily, "I told you never to call me at home."
"I don’t give a large rat’s ass what you told me, Harley, so shut up and listen! I got me a hard-on that’s bigger’n any you ever had and I need you to do somethin’ about it, so don’t say yes or no, just get in your goddamn truck and be at my house in fifteen minutes or I’ll be on my bike so fast I’ll leave a trail like a cyclone. And when I’m done payin’ your precious Mae a little social call she won’t be left wonderin’ what them yellow stains on your belly was from, com-prend-ay? Now move, Harley!"
She slammed the receiver into the prongs and nearly loosened the table legs whacking the telephone down.
Harley had little choice. The older he got the less he needed Lula. But she was dumb and ornery enough to louse things up real good between him and Mae, and he had no intention of losing Mae over a two-bit whore. No sirree. When he retired from that mill with his pockets full after this lucrative war made him rich, he intended to have Mae to bring him iced tea on the porch and his boys to go fishing with and the girls-well, hell, girls weren’t much use, but they were entertaining. The oldest one was sixteen already. Another couple years and she could be married, having his grandchildren. The thought held a curious appeal for Harley. Damn Lula, she could louse it up good if she started flappin’ her trap.
When he opened her door he was already yelling.
"Lula, you got no brains or what? Where the hell are you, Lula?"
Lula was sprawled on the bed, wearing her orange high heels and her orange flamingo-feather earrings and a few black and blue marks from Will Parker’s hands. An ingot of incense burned on the bedside table and her lacy underpants were draped over the lampshade to cut the light.
"Lula, what the hell you mean, callin’ me up and givin’ me orders like I was some-"
Harley rounded her doorway and stopped yelling as if a guillotine had dropped across his tongue. Lula was touching herself with one hand, reaching toward him with the other…
Two months later, on a bleak day in October, Harley got another call from Lula, this time at the mill.
"Harley, it’s me."
"Jesus, what’s the matter with you, callin’ me here! You want the whole damn world to know about us?"
"I gotta see you."
"I’m working a shift and a half today."
"I gotta see you, I said! I got somethin’ important to tell you."
"I can’t tonight, maybe Thurs-"
"Tonight, or I’ll blurt it out on this phone with Edna Mae Simms rubbering in down at central right now-you there, Edna Mae? You gettin’ all of this?"
"All right, all right!"
"Eight-fifteen, my place."
"I don’t get off till-"
The phone clicked dead in Harley’s hands.
When he arrived at Lula’s house she was dressed in a black sheeny dressing gown patterned with cerise orchids the size of cymbals. Her hair was neatly upswept and she wore high-heeled shoes to match the orchids. They reminded Harley of one time when his mother had made him eat beets and he’d vomited afterward. Lula opened the door and closed it behind Harley with a sober snap, then turned to face him with her hands on her hips.
"Well, I’m knocked up, Harley, and it’s yours. I wanna know what you’re gonna do about it."
Harley looked like a bazooka had just been fired three inches from his ear. For a moment he was too stunned to speak. Lula sauntered into the parlor, chin lowered while she pressed a bobby pin into its holding place high on her head.
Bug-eyed, breathless, Harley stammered, "Kn-knocked up?"
"Yup, all yours and mine, Harleykins." She patted her stomach and flashed a sarcastic smile. "Bun in the oven."
"B-but I ain’t seen you for two months, Lula!"
"Exactly, and if you’ll remember, you didn’t use any rubber."