I took a moment so I wouldn’t look like I was rejecting the offer without thinking it over. “No, I’m too broad in the shoulders,” I said, which was on a par with Lacey claiming the clothes would be a size small. Then I thought of my bank account and I remembered I needed a winter coat. “If there’s a coat or a jacket that fits me, maybe I’d need that,” I said reluctantly, and Lacey looked almost grateful. “So, where do you want the rest of the clothes to go?”
“SCC has a clothes closet for the needy,” Lacey said. “I should take them there.” Shakespeare Combined Church was right down the street from the apartment building. It was the busiest church in Shakespeare, at the moment, having just added a new Sunday-school wing.
“Won’t that bother you?”
“Seeing some poor woman go around in Deedra’s old clothes?” She hesitated. “No, I know Deedra would have wanted to help others.”
I was trying to remember someone Deedra had helped (other than by relieving sexual tension) during her life when Lacey added, “All the kitchen things can go to the community relief fund. SCC doesn’t keep anything but clothes.” The town of Shakespeare kept a few rooms at the old community center filled with odds and ends cleaned out from people’s cabinets and attics: pots and pans, dishes, sheets, blankets, utensils. The purpose of this accumulation was to re-equip families who had met with a disaster. In our part of the country, “disasters” generally translate as fires or tornadoes.
Again Lacey stood in silence for a few long moments.
“Where would you like me to begin?” I said as gently as I could.
“Her clothes, please. That would be hardest for me.” And Lacey turned and went into the kitchen with one of the boxes.
I admired her courage.
I got a box of my own, reassembled it, and went into the larger bedroom.
Everything had been searched, of course. I guess the police always hope to find a piece of paper with Am meeting Joe Doe at 8:00. If evil befalls me, he is the guilty one written on it. But I was pretty sure no one had found such a note, and I didn’t find it either, though I conscientiously checked the pockets of each garment and the inside of every shoe as I packed boxes.
When I was sure Lacey was busy in the kitchen, I reached under Deedra’s bed and slid out a box she’d stuffed under there. I’d only cleared under the bed a couple of times before, when Deedra (actually Lacey) had paid for a spring-cleaning. Then, Deedra had had plenty of warning to conceal this carved wooden box with its tight-fitting lid. I lifted it a little to look inside. After a long, comprehensive stare at the contents I slammed it shut and wondered where I could hide it from Lacey.
It had been years since I’d thought of myself as naive. But I discovered that not only could I still be shocked, but also I could say that whole areas of my life were unsophisticated.
I peeked again.
A couple of the sex toys in the box were easily identifiable, even to someone like me who’d never seen the like. But one or two baffled me. I knew their function was something I’d puzzle over in odd moments for some time to come, and the idea didn’t make me happy. As I pushed the box back under the edge of the bedspread till I could think of a way to get it out of the apartment surreptitiously, I found myself wondering if Jack had ever used such items. I was embarrassed at the thought of asking him, to my astonishment. I hadn’t realized there was anything we could say or do between us that would be embarrassing. Interesting.
I glanced out into the hall before I slipped into the guest bedroom. I opened the drawer the sheriff had designated, and discovered it was full of odds and ends like handcuffs, stained silk scarves, heavy cord… and movies.
“Oh, man,” I muttered as the titles registered. I could feel my face grow hot with shame. How could she have made herself so vulnerable? How could she have put herself at someone’s mercy this way? It seemed to me that only a woman who’d never experienced sexual violence would think the imitation of it a turn-on. Maybe I was being naive about that, too, I thought gloomily.
I stuffed all the paraphernalia into a garbage bag, and deposited it under the bed with the carved box. Then I started packing clothes swiftly to make up for the lost time.
I resumed my task by opening the top drawer of Deedra’s lingerie chest. I wondered how pleased the women’s group at Shakespeare Combined Church would be to get some of Deedra’s exotic play clothes. Would the deserving poor be thrilled with a leopard-print thong and matching baby-doll nightie?
Soon I moved to the chest of drawers and more mundane items. As I folded everything neatly, I tried to keep all the categories together: slacks, spring dresses, T-shirts, shorts. I assumed Deedra had moved her out-of-season clothes to the closet of the second bedroom. That was where the jackets would be.
I was right. The second closet was just as packed as the first, but with fall and winter clothes. Most of her suits and dresses would be categorized as Professional-Slut Subsection. Deedra had loved dressing up for work. She’d liked her job, too; since she’d completed two mediocre years at junior college, Deedra had been a clerk in the county clerk’s office. In Arkansas, the office of county clerk is an elected two-year position, quite often held by a woman. In Shakespeare’s county, Hartsfield, a man, Choke Anson, had won the last election. My friend Claude Friedrich, the chief of police, thought Choke intended to use the office as an entrance to county politics, and thence to the state arena.
I was probably the least political person in Hartsfield County. In Arkansas, politics are a cross between a tabloid concoction and a brawl. Politicians in Arkansas are not afraid to be colorful, and they love to be folksy. Though my conscience would not permit to me to skip voting, I often voted for the lesser of two evils. This past election, Choke Anson had been the lesser. I knew his opponent, Mary Elwood, having observed her at the SCC while I served the board meeting there. Mary Elwood was a stupid, ultraconservative homophobe who believed with absolute sincerity that she knew the will of God. She further believed that people who disagreed with her were not only wrong, but also evil. I’d figured Choke Anson simply couldn’t be as bad. Now I wondered how Deedra had managed with a male superior.
“Did you pick a jacket?”
“What?” I was so startled I jumped.
Lacey brought another box into the room. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said wearily. “I was just hoping you’d found a jacket you could use. Deedra thought so highly of you, I know she’d like you to have whatever you could use.”
It was news to me that Deedra’d thought of me at all, much less that she’d had any particular regard for me. I would have been interested to hear that conversation, if it had ever taken place.
There was a forest-green thigh-length coat with a zip-out lining that would be very useful, and there was a leather jacket that I admired. The other coats and jackets were too fancy, or impractical, or looked too narrow in the shoulders. I didn’t remember seeing Deedra wearing either of the ones I liked, so maybe they wouldn’t be such reminders to her mother.
“These?” I asked, holding them up.
“Anything you want,” Lacey said, not even turning to look at my choices. I realized that she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to mark the clothes so when she saw me she wouldn’t think of Deedra. I folded the garments and went back into Deedra’s larger bedroom. There, I quickly placed the carved box into a reassembled carton, and put the plastic bag of “toys” in with it. I laid the two jackets on top, covering up the contraband. I wrote Lily on the top in Magic Marker, hoping that even if Lacey wondered why I’d put the jackets in a box instead of carrying them out over my arm, she’d be too preoccupied to ask.
We worked all morning, Lacey and I. Twice, Lacey went into the bathroom abruptly and I could hear her crying through the door. Since the apartment was so quiet, I had time to wonder why some friend of Lacey’s wasn’t helping her with this homely task. Surely this was the time when family and friends stepped in.