Deep Fried and Pickled (Book One - The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Page 19

“I don’t know.”

  “Billy Ray. Wanted to know your home phone number.”

  I choked. “Please tell me you didn’t give it to him.”

  Katie Lee laughed. “Don’t worry, I made up an excuse.”

  I closed my eyes in relief.

  “I broke the news to my parents about the anniversary wine.”

  “Are you grounded for a year?” I asked.

  “Na, they were cool. Didn’t make too big deal of it.”

  “You never cease to amaze me. What else is going on in The Bern?”

  “Nash and I are spendin’ a lot of romantic time together.”

  Romantic time with you and how many others? The thought made me want to yak. “Make sure you take precautions. You don’t need a love child.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re careful.”

  “How are the McCoys?” I asked.

  “Daddy reminded Patsy and me that we’ll be muckin’ barnacles off fiberglass when I get home from the spring semester. I was hopin’ they’d forgotten about that.”

  Katie Lee didn’t mention Mitch. Not wanting to seem overly interested, I didn’t ask.

  A pint of Kentucky bourbon arrived from Travis. The note read, “Thought you could use something to survive the Canton winter.” Travis and I had spoken a few times since Halloween and become kindred hearts. I wished for more. If he ever became disgruntled with his current sexual preference, I’d enthusiastically volunteer myself to bring him back to team female. For now, we were just friends.

  A postcard with an “I love NY,” tattooed on a voluptuous ass arrived a few days into the New Year. Luckily, Dad was at his shop, and I’d brought the mail in.

  Happy New Year!

  Hanging out with the old crowd in Queens.

  Rang in “87” with a ball drop (the one in Times Square).

  Vaguely recall the night. Will share what I remember.

  See you in a fucking few.

  -M-

  OVER BREAK I PRAYED FOR divine intervention. Anything would do, a lightning bolt that erased Trudy’s memory of Dad, a torn gluteus maximus to keep her in her apartment. I was open to options, but nothing extraordinary happened. The novelty of Trudy lasted the entire break. In addition to her, Dad found a new obsession. Locks. He rekeyed the house and the shop. Each night, I heard him turn the deadbolts on the front door and slide the chain. Then he moved to the back door. I wondered if he found it therapeutic. I guessed he worried that Mom would just show up and let herself in. His worst fear was my wish.

  Scumbling and glazing the Francois Quesnel portrait kept me busy. I spent more time with my father than I ever remember, and during the day the meticulous detailing kept my mind from overly obsessing about Mom, Bridget, Nash, Patsy, Mitch and Clay. In the evening, when I snuck in my room to sip bourbon and smoke ciggies, I pondered all of them.

  The night before I was due to leave, Mom called. She and Dad didn’t say much. I wondered if they’d spoken before about what she was doing, if she needed money and when she was coming back, but dad hadn’t shared anything with me. Mom asked me about my first semester, and I gave standard answers to her standard questions. After I hung up, I found myself staring at the clothes that still hung in her wardrobe. Dad didn’t know what to do with her things and neither did I. As much as she hurt us, it didn’t seem right to throw them away or give her stuff to charity. Not yet. Gripping a handful of fabric, I pulled it to my face, drinking in the only touchable thing left of the mother that raised me. Standing in her closet, I realized even though I considered my dad overly neurotic and annoying, he loved me. I could easily read his emotions, they weren’t hidden or complicated. Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. I wasn’t ever going to let go of him.

  NOTE TO SELF

  Working in Dad’s shop took off the monotonous edge of being at home and fattened my wallet.

  Trudy is like a rash – infectiously annoying.

  I made zero progress with Clay. Not sure if I’ll get another chance next semester.

  JANUARY 1987

  25

  What The Tarnation?

  Having one semester under my belt, I’d learned a few things:

  1. Avoid wet riverbanks —- breeding grounds for chigger patches. And chiggers can lead to a whole lot of trouble.

  2. Don’t fool around with Mitch. Despite his cute looks and smooth talking southern, he’s too young.

  3. Never sip a drink Bridget offers.

  4. Avoid contact with Nash Wilson and Billy Ray.

  5. Refocus on Clay Sorenson.

  Being a seasoned freshman, I was ready to navigate my way through semester number two.

  Gray clouds collected in the Carolina winter sky casting gloom onto the campus landscape. Handing the taxi driver a crisp twenty, I slid off the plastic taxi seat and stood in front of Grogan dorm. Carrying a duffel on my shoulder, I raced down the twenty-six steps toward the lobby. I’d missed the girls and wanted to hear details about their holiday breaks.

  Inside the dorm elevator, I pressed number seven and wondered what my chances were of having another class with Clay. Probably the same odds as winning the jingle-bell, scratch card jackpot.

  With a jolt, the metal doors opened, delivering a rancid stink. I double-checked the hallway, hoping it was the wrong floor. It wasn’t. I hustled toward my room, searching my database of disgusting to identify the smell. My best match: old tennis shoe inserts splashed with sapsago cheese. Some aspects of dorm life I hadn’t missed.

  Before I went into my room, I knocked on Macy’s door. Giving her a hug, I asked, “What’s that smell?”

  “It’s not me. We’re lucky we’re on the far end of the floor. It’s worse near the elevators.”

  From behind us, Katie Lee said, “Y’all are lookin’ marvelous.” Out of breath, she asked, “Can I get a hand emptying my car? Mom sent me back with groceries, and I got a new boom box for Christmas.”

  Near the elevator, Katie Lee pinched her nose. “Good lord, y’all.”

  “Gross Grogan,” Macy said.

  “Y’all, something is seriously decayed. Has anyone looked for a dead animal in the stairwell?”

  “That’s creepy,” I said. “How would anything get past the lobby and into an enclosed stairway?”

  “I don’t do basements or stairwells,” Macy said. “I’m certainly not checking.”

  Katie Lee had brought back more than groceries and a boom box. Her stash also included an overstuffed upholstered chair, a beanbag, a coffee table and all her sweaters, coats and winter gear. The armchair, covered in a psychedelic stripe, poked out from a bungee-cord lock-system, meant to keep the trunk closed. It took Katie Lee, Macy and me three trips to unload. When we finished, you couldn’t see floor in our room.

  Macy left, making an excuse about a phone call. “Good luck with all that,” she said.

  Trapped behind a mound of stuff, I stated the obvious. “Katie Lee, we don’t have room.”

  Leaving her coat on, she grabbed her car keys. “Raz, we need to build up.”

  I looked at my chest. “Mine will never look built up.”

  “Not boob implants, a loft. Come on.”

  BEHIND A QUICKIE MARKET, Katie Lee kept the engine running while I stuffed milk crates into Big Blue.

  “Try ‘n get all gray ones,” she’d said. I ignored her and rushed to fill up the car. I just wanted this loft built so I could get to campus and look for Clay Sorenson. He had to eat, and I guessed the cafeteria was the best location for a sighting. I had planned to linger there as much as possible, and building a loft cut into my surveillance work.

  I’d filled the car with crates when the employee door of the convenience store opened. I leapt to the front seat. “If I’m going to get arrested, it better not be for this.”

  Katie Lee jammed the gas pedal. “Buckle in,” she said, gunning us out of the alley.

  It took three more car trips to carry the milk crates into our room. Somewhere in the hallway, I heard Hugh s
ay, “Hey,” to Macy. A knuckle rap clunked our wood veneer, and we watched the door inch open a quarter of the way before it nailed the pile of furniture and crates.

  Half Hugh’s face jutted around the door, and he shimmied into our room. “Y’all look hotter than jalapeño corn bread.”

  I squealed, not recognizing him.

  “Oh my Lord,” Katie Lee said.

  “You shaved it off!” I shouted, unable to resist touching Hugh’s smooth upper lip.

  “I like the look,” Katie Lee said, and his grin raised his cheeks.

  We gave him respectable hugs in exchange for help to build the loft. By dinnertime, my bed towered above Katie Lee’s, on two, four–by-six pieces of lumber that rested on a foundation of vertically stacked milk crates.

  “Is it sturdy?” I asked.

  Lifting me over his head, he said, “There’s one way to find out.”

  A muffled eeew and a scream erupted from down the hall.

  Hugh lowered me to the ground, and asked, “Someone got a birthin’ goat?”

  Macy bounded into our room. “That sounded like Bridget.”

  Already in the hall, Katie Lee said, “C’mon.”

  A herd of lookie-Lou’s, including Francine, had gathered outside Bridget’s room. Everyone held their noses. After a quick snoop, almost everyone made speedy exits. Bridget’s open door released an aroma that overpowered what had lingered in front of the elevators. Francine waved her hand in front of her face and said, “Lord, girl, your room has more stink than the public-park-porta-potties on the fourth of July.”

  Bridget’s bags lay in a heap on her floor. Something I didn’t want to identify had been splattered across her baby blue, cement block walls. The cranberry and donut cream goo had dried in a design that reminded me of my dad’s painters apron. Paralyzed, she cupped her hands over her mouth and nose. Tears welled above her reddened cheeks.

  I stood on tiptoes peering from behind Hugh’s shoulder. “Your room is trashed.”

  Her drawers and closets had been hastily emptied, and I couldn’t see any linoleum. Clothes and bedding lay strewn across the room. Two twin mattresses spilled from their frames. When I noticed the slits in them, I wished I hadn’t made the insensitive comment about her messy room.

  Forgetting to turn on his word-filter device, Hugh said, “It looks like someone hurt themselves jackin’ ---. Ouch, Macy.”

  Macy hadn’t smacked him quickly enough.

  Bridget gasped. “Oh God, I’m going to be sick if that’s what’s on my walls.”

  Wondering whose boyfriend she fooled around with now, I asked, “Did your roommate do this?”

  “She wouldn’t,” Bridget said. “We were friends. Besides, she left for break before I did.”

  Katie Lee pushed buttons on Bridget’s phone. “I’m calling campus security.”

  It must have been a slow night because Tuke Walson arrived minutes after Katie Lee hung up. Ironed creases ran down the center of his pants, and a white undershirt applied pressure to the buttons that held his shirt together.

  “Any idea who could’ve done this?”

  “No sir,” Bridget said.

  “Did you lock up before break?”

  “Of course she did,” Katie Lee said.

  Asking questions, taking Polaroid’s and jotting notes, Tuke poked around the room. He stopped in front of the electric heater and pulled a sweatshirt off an open container of calcium-fortified milk. “Leave an open container of milk near a heat source and you got yourself a carton of nasty.” He crinkled his face and put the sweatshirt back. “That there is one cooked quart.” It took him fifteen minutes to tell Bridget, “I’m finished. Someone from the janitorial staff will contact you.”

  Exasperated and looking at the disarray, Bridget didn’t know if anything had been stolen. He sympathized with her and said, “If there’s anything missing, you can file a report.”

  “Is this going around?” Katie Lee asked. “Has there been a rash of milk-bomb break-in’s?”

  “No, ma’am. This is the first I’ve encountered. College kids never cease to amaze me. Exploding toilets, now that buggers things into a real mess. My guess is that you know who did this. An ex-boyfriend?”

  Pulling a pen from his pocket protector, he scraped the goo on the wall.

  Hugh lifted his nose from under his shirt to say, “You’re a brave man.”

  “That there’s condiment,” Tuke said.

  “Is that what you call it?” Hugh asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s all-American. Everyone puts ketchup and mayo on popcorn shrimp and hush puppies.” He placed a business card on Bridget’s dresser. “Ladies, be sure and lock your doors. And call me if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”

  Macy liberally sanitized the seventh floor hallway with an entire can of Lysol. Katie Lee borrowed fans, and I disposed of the foul milk in the outside dumpster. When I returned, Hugh had refilled the mattress stuffing and placed them back in their frames. He motioned Katie Lee and Bridget outside the door, and I heard him offer his protective services to accompany them to the basement washing machines.

  “I’m totally freaked out,” Bridget said. She asked Katie Lee, “Can I sleep in your room tonight?”

  Without asking me, Katie Lee said, “Of course.”

  Hugh huddled with the two, wrapping them in his arms. “If y’all feel you need extra protection…”

  “Hugh,” Katie Lee said, “forget it. You’re not sleeping in our room.”

  “I was going to say, I have a Smith and Wesson snubnose you can borrow. It’s compact. Help ya sleep soundly.”

  Hugh was crazy to loan Bridget a firearm. She’d probably get freaked out with dorm noises and accidently shoot someone on their way to the hall bathroom.

  Breaking from his arm hold, Katie Lee slapped his back. “You’re a true southerner.”

  Looking right, then left, he said, “Who, me?”

  “That’s so illegal,” Bridget said. “You realize you could get expelled.”

  “Let’s just say I like to feel protected.”

  “Where do you keep it?” Bridget whispered.

  “That’s not welcome in our room,” I shouted.

  Hugh lowered his voice and said something else to Bridget. I moved toward the door to protest the gun thing. Hugh distracted me when he said, “Hey, I know some guys who are throwing a party off campus tomorrow night. Y’all wanna come?”

  “Definitely,” Katie Lee said as she left with Bridget to throw in a load of laundry.

  Francine emerged from the room across from Bridget’s. She’d put a relaxer on her hair and warmed the gelatinous conditioner under a Saran Wrap, shower cap that was secured with a gigantic rubber band. Lingering in Bridget’s doorway, she said, “Hugh, I need someone about your height to help me hang a shelf in my room.”

  “That’s what all the woman say.”

  “Are you daft?” Francine asked. “If I needed somethin’ personal taken care of, I wouldn’t be dressed like this.”

  Francine dragged Hugh down the hall. Macy shut Bridget’s door.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked. “It still stinks in here.”

  Bridget’s phone rang. We both looked at it and on the third ring Macy picked it up. She told the person on the other line that Bridget wasn’t around and asked is she could take a message. When she hung up, she wore a look I’d seen before. It was the, this is fucked up look.

  “Who was that.”

  Macy scrunched her nose. The accent was thick. I think he said, Billy Ray.”

  “You’re kidding? Why would he call her?”

  Macy shrugged. Maybe I misunderstood.

  “This vandalism thing is weird.”

  She stuck her head out the window. When she brought it back in she asked, “Who could get in here over break and do this to her room?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, wondering who else Bridget had slept with and what she’d done to piss that person off. Something needled at me. Why did Brid
get continue to hover in a deceitful friendship with Katie Lee? Why not spill what she’d done or cut ties with Katie Lee? My mind went into overdrive. It could only be one of two reasons, a cheater-high, having gotten away with naughty sex or Katie Lee had something that Bridget wanted.

  NOTE TO SELF

  Buy a jingle-bell, scratch-off lotto ticket at the quickie mart.

  Vandalism on the seventh floor. Completely disturbing.

  Bridget is sleeping on our floor for night number two. I didn’t agree to a loft so our room could accommodate three.

  26

  Better Than A Bundt Cake

  Standing around in long registration lines, inside a stuffy sweat-infested gymnasium lowered my blood sugar and put me into a vegetative state. I needed to snap out of my funk if I was going to enjoy the party at the yellow house tonight. Fresh air and searching for Clay seemed like a good plan.

  Rushing through the late afternoon chill, I dodged the spit of rain. I’d been gone all day and hoped that Bridget’s mattress had been dragged out of our room and back into hers. For safety purposes, I’d slept with a curling iron under my pillow and still had a dull crimp in my neck. Clay wasn’t in the gymnasium or the empty cafeteria. North Carolina College campus covered two-hundred-twenty acres and I became disillusioned with finding him.

  Last semester, he’d asked to copy my notes, once. He hadn’t asked for my phone number, or what dorm I lived in. Sensibilities pointed to the exit sign out of fantasyland, but reality village could be dull, and I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.