You see, some very bad things happened to me that January, but the best thing happened, too.
You.
You happened.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Ricky asked me, making it clear he didn’t approve.
I glanced in the bedroom mirror and saw my reflection wearing a bulky striped sweater, jean skirt, and leggings. I’d brushed out my black hair, but that was a losing battle against the tangles. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
His mouth puckered as if he were eating a grapefruit. “You look like a high school virgin. Show a little skin.”
“It’s five below zero,” I reminded him. “Every time the door opens at the 126, it’s a refrigerator in there. You want me to shiver through the whole movie?”
“I want my wife to look sexy when we go out. That’s not asking a lot.”
“What difference does it make?” I protested. “No one will be looking at me. All the girls will be looking at Sean Connery, and all the guys will be looking at Kim Basinger.”
“Ajax will be looking at you. He always does. I want him to see what he can’t have.”
I shook my head, and exasperation crept into my voice. “Will you let it go about Ajax? He’s just trying to drive you crazy. He’s been doing that since you were kids.”
Ricky began unbuttoning his shirt. “Fine. If you’re going to be like that, we’ll stay home.”
I swore under my breath.
Yes, I could have stood my ground, but I wasn’t in the mood for a fight. Not that night. I wanted to drown my sorrows and not worry about anything else. I was in the mood to go out, to laugh, to forget, to drink. Definitely to drink. I wasn’t looking forward to the week ahead. I’d made up my mind like a New Year’s resolution to split up with Ricky for good, and I’d set up an appointment with Norm in a few days to talk about how to do it. But I wasn’t ready to tell Ricky yet, and until I did, I was determined to keep the fragile truce between us.
So I went back to our closet and stripped off my clothes. Ricky sat on the bed and watched me. I switched bras, putting on one that pushed up what little I had to push up. I found a flowered sundress that came only halfway down my thighs. It had poofy shoulders and a scoop neckline and would have been perfect for a Fourth of July picnic, not a late January night at the 126. I slipped it over my head and then did a pirouette that fluttered the hem.
“How’s this? Satisfied?”
“Hell yeah. Was that so hard?”
I summoned a fake smile at his reaction. I was already freezing.
That was how we went to the bar, with my arms and legs pebbled over with goose bumps and my nipples trying to burst through my dress so they could get back home and nestle inside a sweater. Ricky got what he wanted. I was definitely the sexiest girl there, because everyone else was buried under layers of flannel. I figured I could keep my long wool coat on to stay warm, but Ricky took it away when we sat down, which left me feeling like a Florida flamingo who’d been shipped to an Alaska glacier.
The 126 was a big place, with blond wood and kitschy décor that ranged from big-game animal heads to vintage hubcaps to coconut monkey faces. It had a central room where they put up metal folding chairs on movie night, and they could seat almost two hundred people. Then there was the long bar, with fake Tiffany chandeliers, neon signs for Budweiser and Bartles & Jaymes, a few beer taps, and red upholstered chairs that bore the butt prints of the regulars. Smaller rooms jutted off from the bar area, where you could play pool, foosball, pinball, and video games.
All this, and there was only one toilet stall for the women. The lines got long.
Ricky and I settled in next to each other for the Bond flick Never Say Never Again. He put his hand on my bare thigh. The lights went down low, but the noise didn’t. Movie night here was mostly a social thing. If you actually wanted to watch the film, you were in the wrong place. People made shadow puppets on the screen and shouted out the dialogue, because we’d all seen the movie before. Neighbors talked and joked, and teenagers made out, and kids ran around screaming, and we all got drunk. Me included. Very drunk. I drank way too much beer. By the time James Bond was sleeping with Fatima Blush, I was tipsy. I was also dancing in my chair because I needed to pee.
So I headed for the bathrooms, which were down a corridor near the back door, where it was as cold as a meat locker. I passed through a cloud of cigarette smoke and added to the cloud by lighting one myself. The hallway smelled of burnt popcorn and urine. Ten women waited for the bathroom, and I swore at the line, because I didn’t think I was going to last that long.
Sandra Thoreau stood in front of me. She laughed at my summer dress. “What the hell are you wearing, honey?”
I rolled my eyes. “Ricky’s idea.”
“Yeah, no shit. You want to borrow my coat for a minute?”
“You’re awesome. Could I?”
Sandra slipped off her wool coat, and I stuck my arms inside the sleeves and wrapped it around myself, feeling warm for the first time in two hours.
“How goes the Brink case?” she asked me. “Know who carved him up yet?”
“No.”
“Getting close?”
“No, we’re nowhere. Darrell’s not happy.”
“Too bad.”
My head spun with the alcohol, and I talked more than I should. “Nobody cares anyway,” I said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Kip, Racer, Brink. They were bad men.”
“Yes, they were.”
“Nobody cares,” I said again. “Nobody cares about bad men.”
“Hey, Rebecca?” Sandra murmured, her voice going down to a whisper as she put her lips to my ear.
“Yeah?”
“Ricky’s a bad man, too.”
It was a relief to hear someone else say it out loud. Like I wasn’t alone. “Yeah. You’re right. He is.”
“Honey, you need to get out of that marriage.”
“I know.”
“You’re so much better than he is. I never understood why you married a loser like him. You’re pretty, you’re smart, you’re tough. You’re special.”
I sighed and closed my eyes, feeling unsteady. “I never wanted to be special. I just wanted to be normal. Around here, normal girls get married.”
“Okay, but why Ricky?”
“He said he loved me.”
“He was lying,” Sandra said.
I didn’t understand. I couldn’t focus. There was too much noise, too much smoke, too much cold, too much stench wafting out of the toilets. I was going to be sick. “What are you saying?”
“The football game? The first time you met him? He’d been watching you for weeks.”
I stared at her, seeing two Sandras, then three, then four, like a mirror in a fun house. “That’s not true.”
“Honey, he bragged to everybody at the mine that he was going to get you. Ricky was stalking you like a deer in the woods.”
I took off Sandra’s coat and handed it back to her. “Here.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re crying, Rebecca.”
“I’m not crying. I just really, really, really need to pee. What are those women doing in there?”
I was going to lose it. If I didn’t do something right then and there, I’d be peeing on the floor. I squeezed my bare legs together. I rubbed my face, which was wet, and I didn’t even know why. I saw the bar’s back door at the end of the hallway, and I wobbled that way on my heels, practically falling down. The only thing I could do was go outside in the snow. I could pee there. I really had to pee.
Then I met Ajax.