“A Nice Room”
Fiction by Rolf Rykken
“Hi. “ She said it pleasantly. Tone was important with Colleen.
“Hi! Sorry I dint make it today. I was, uh, working,” Colleen said this hurriedly, interruptedly.
“Yes. Well, it’s getting late. Can I come by tonight?”
“Oh! Well, I’m going out now.”
“Out? Collie, it’s getting late, almost three months. If you’re going to do it, it must be very soon.”
“It’s Holloweeeen! I’m going trick or treating. I have a neat costume. Wonder Women. I have a lasso too. And Clark is going as Steve Trevor. He’s very handsome.”
“Clark?”
“Yah. He’s out on bail. He’s going to get a job. I don’t know what we’ll do about the beard.”
“Beard?”
“Steve Trevor don’t have a beard. Clark can tie his hair back, but we dint know what to do about the beard. He has trouble getting the mask over it.”
“I can see how that would be a problem. I’ll call tomorrow. You can’t just put the decision off, you know. It won’t just go away.”
They should have gone weeks ago, Lauren chided herself as she clicked off the phone. But Colleen wasn’t sure and they had to find her a place to live as well as a job.
Lauren knew Collie was probably using her, but she just couldn’t let her fend for herself; she was so damn helpless, moving from one trailer to another, living with so-called friends who abused her, who “borrowed” her money, her CDs, her clothes. Mean creeps like Clark who’d let her stay with them if she balled, then beat her until Collie would finally get fed up and run away, just like she’d done from that stepfather who kept pawing at her, parading around the tiny, peeling clapboard with his pants off, saying how big he was, how he’d sure show her, as her mother lay passed out.
These stories Collie told matter-of-factly in a little girl-voice that made Lauren wince. Ignorant people hurting other ignorant people; children having children so they’d have someone to love who’d love them back. But it didn’t work out that way. Lauren knew that. She could see that.
They looked to her for answers. What are they?
How would she know? Go to school, get a job, fall in love.
They’d go to school until they couldn’t stand adults putting them down all the time, intimidating them, telling them what not to do, how not to act; and then they’d quit, to seek jobs from other adults who put them down because they’d dropped out of school.
As for love, there are always substitutes.
Staring at the phone, Lauren thought about quitting. Again. Leaving the foreign rural land so different from what she’d known. Why, country people even looked different from suburban people. Not just the way they dressed or talked, but their faces. No chins, scared little kid-eyes, pale complexions. It made her cry, all of it. Sometimes she cried for hours. She told no one but her dog.
The kids thought that if they could hack it with sex then everything else would fall into place. They told her this during question-and-answer sessions and after her lectures. Lauren was the sex teacher — that’s what they called the sex-ed teacher from the private agency the school districts hired. Without telling them, she told them to do it if they wanted, but only it they really wanted to; and to insist on the boy using a rubber for safety from AIDS and above all, to avoid getting pregnant. They looked at her with open faces wondering how old she was, if she really was an adult. Sometimes they stopped her in the school hallways to ask if she was a new student. She was not much taller than they. She wore clean, pressed slacks or slightly above-the-knee skirts, and actually laughed sometimes. She did not talk down to them.
A loud burp-like sound came from beyond the front door of her tiny rented house at the edge of the small city. She opened the door and her goofball, English springer spaniel, with flapping ears bounced into the house.
“Piglet!” Lauren talked to her dog in a falsetto, little girl-voice as she’d done with her original springer when she was a child. Female dogs (and cats) understood better when they were spoken to in a high-pitched voice.
Lauren plopped down to the hardwood floor by the phone stand and scooped the dog into her arms. Piglet began licking her face and hands, washing her, really, as if Lauren were her puppy. Lauren laughed and rolled on the floor
with her, shaking Piglet’s hind legs in the air. The dog looked as if she were smiling and laughed silently.
The phone rang. Lauren pushed Piglet off her legs and rose to the phone, glancing at her picture of Chan Marshall of Cat Power as she grabbed the receiver.
“Laurie; hello! Happy Halloween.”
Lauren did not like to be called Laurie, it made her sound like a little girl. Her mother knew this.
Lauren forced a smile on her face as she said hello. This made her tone pleasant sounding, even passingly enthused. It was a trick she learned from a radio disc jockey she’d carried on seriously with long ago in college — and didn’t marry.
“Had any children yet?”
“No, not yet.” Lauren answered with concern. Then she remembered she’d forgotten to get any candy in case some children did appear.
They usually didn’t. Her house was far back from a heavily traveled road. She had only some fireballs, anyway. She did not tell her mother this.
“I’ll bet you forgot to get any candy, right?”
“No. I have a little. Kids don’t come here. They can’t see the house.”
“The funniest thing just happened. That’s why I called. It was so funny. Your father just loves Halloween, as you may remember. He stocked up on candy and even got a little mask of that Goofy character, you know, the Walt Disney one? Well, the door bell rang — we’ve been getting many children here — and Saul opens the door expecting to surprise some child and you know what? It was Bernie dressed up as that ‘Star Wars’ villain, uh, Barth — ”
“Darth Vader.”
“Oh. Yes. It was quite amusing, after Saul recovered himself. Bernie’s so tall, you probably remember, and Saul was taken aback. He said his first thought was not to give out any candy.”
“That is funny.” Lauren’s mouth began to sting from the pasted-up smile. How can disc jockies keep this up?
“He asked about you.”
“Dad?” Cheap joke. Be pleasant.
“No, no, dear; Bernie. He’s doing wonderfully well now, with his new e-mail software company. He’s so intelligent. He’s even thinking of starting his own charter plane company, although I don’t know when he’d find the time. He’s sooo busy.”
“He always was a go-getter.” Lauren pulled the receiver away and exercised her jaw.
“I remember when you two were children and starting up all those little businesses of yours — that lemonade stand and the neighborhood newsletter. You two were so cute.”
“How are you and Dad? Dad still busy with the White House people?” The war-mongers, Lauren said silently.
Her mother paused. “Well, he still hasn’t heard back — Oh dear. The doorbell, Saul. You’d better get it. And don’t scare the children too much. Heh, heh. He’s so cute in that mask, although I can’t imagine how he can see. Where was I?”
“The White House ….”
“Oh yes. They’re using his program ideas and not giving him any credit. Once again he’s being used. It’s hard when you’ve been out and are trying to get back in. But he thinks he might have a spot lined up with the D.C. government. It’s such a mess down there. How’s your job?”
What to say without getting a lecture about returning to Washington, settling down and marrying Bernie, who’d probably wear the Darth Vader mask to the wedding.
‘‘It’s all right. Gets a little depressing now and then.”
“Yes. Those people are so sad. Some of those stories you tell me, why, I can’t understand why those people act the way they do.”
“They aren’t that much different from those people in the suburbs,” Lauren said slightly defensively.
“Oh, really? Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never lived with country people. When are we going to see you?”
Never. “I don’t know. Soon. How about coming to Delaware? I got a bed and fixed up the guest bedroom, so you won’t have to stay in a motel like last time.”
The mother paused. “We are thinking of visiting Bernie and his folks at their Bethany Beach house. The beach is so wonderful in the winter, so elemental. Maybe you could come down to visit?”
“Maybe. But I think the Blitzers are still angry over the last time, when Piglet peeed on their sun deck. Oh, I’ve got to go. I think some kids are coming to the door. Take it easy and say hello to Dad — and Bernie, of course.”
“Yes, dear. Oh, Laurie, how’s that young man you’ve been seeing — the biology teacher?”
Botany. “He’s doing fine. We had dinner the other night.” While his wife was out of town.
“Good. How nice. I’ll tell Bernie you were asking about him. Goodbye, dear.”
Lauren immediately went to the couch, laid down and called over her dog.
The two lay there entwined; the dog, making pig-like noises, resumed licking Lauren.
Conversations with her mother depleted Lauren. Even now at her age and with her responsible job her mother continued speaking to her like a child who needed guidance. She had stopped calling her daughter at early morning hours when she would matter-of-factly ask if Lauren was alone. Now, Lauren figured, she probably hoped she wouldn’t be alone. It might lead to a big garden wedding at the house.
Lauren and her dog fell asleep.
In her dream Lauren was huddled in the corner of her childhood bed, crying, shaking her head. Her mother banged on the locked door, yelling, “Laurie, Laurie!” demanding that she go to school. Lauren was frightened of her teacher, who picked on her, ridiculed her and liked to call Lauren “my little Jewish-American Princess.” Lauren did not tell her mother this because she felt she would not believe her. Lauren’s mother banged and banged on the door. Lauren thought she would break through the door with her fists.
“Lauren!”
Lauren jumped up, which made Piglet groan and slide off the couch.
“Lauren!”
It took Lauren a moment to realize this was not her mother screaming her name. It was an outside cry. Piglet stood erect, growling.
Lauren shook her head, stood on her knees on the couch and peered out the window. A tall bearded man was chasing a young girl across Lauren’s lawn. It looked like a scene from a “Dexter’s Laboratory” cartoon with all the motion exaggerated. Piglet ran to the door, barking. Lauren, still perplexed by what she was seeing, remained on the couch.
“Lauren!”
“Holy shit,” said Lauren. She stumbled from the couch to go to the door and release Piglet.
The dog raced past Colleen, who huddled under the amber porch light near the door. Piglet pursued the tall man, snapping at his legs. The man screamed an eerie, piercing sound, kicking wildly at the dog. He only connected with the scream. He fell and Piglet was on top of him, growling, snarling, snapping at his beard and face. The man managed to push her off and struggled to his feet. He darted off as Piglet, also recovered, burst after him.
“Piglet; no! Come back, good dog!’’ yelled Lauren.
Piglet stopped at the end of the driveway and returned, her tail wagging.
Lauren looked at Colleen, who, still standing under the porch light, had amber tears in her frightened eyes. Her red hair was pulled into a ponytail and dangling. She wore a red, white and blue t-shirt with Wonder Woman on the front leaping to justice with a yellow lasso of truth. The left sleeve was ripped. There was yellow twine wrapped around the waist of her cut-off jeans and her black boots came up to her knees.
Colleen looked at Lauren’s bare feet.
‘‘I was only playing. Like Wonder Woman. I tried to lasso Clark with my rope of truth to see if he really loves me. I was only playing. He punched me out. I ran over here and he came after me, hitting ….”
“Will he come back?” asked Lauren as she looked down at Piglet, her protector, who sat obediently next to her, her tail swishing against the porch floor.
“No, he’s afraid of dogs,” she said. “I’m never going back to him. Can I stay here?” She smiled expectantly. The question was not an afterthought.
They taIked for more than an hour. Lauren, petting Piglet, told Colleen she really couldn’t stay again because it was unprofessional and she might get in trouble with her agency. Colleen said it was only for the night, that she could maybe stay with her sister (who didn’t like her) in Salisbury, but how would she get to work at the Burger King? She was never going back to Clark, she hated him so. She wasn’t scared. Not about Clark; not about the abortion.
“Have you decided to have it?” Lauren was straightening out the guest room, pushing her laundry in the corner, placing the tangerine iBook on the bureau.
“I don’t know. I ain’t scared, I ain’t. I just don’t know. Clark’s not really so bad, just a lot of the time. He gets confused. He had it terrible in the prison. Almost got raped. He wants to go good, to be good. It’s hard. I can’t go back there. He’s at the apartment.”
“But it’s your place!”
“Don’t yell at me. I know.”
‘‘Sorry. Look, we’ll go to sleep and try and figure things out tomorrow. You can stay here until then, I guess. What time do you have to be at work?”
Colleen looked around the room. The fear eased from her eyes as she did. “You fixed this up nice since the last time. Really. Oh. Eleven. This is nice.”
She moved to the bedside table and turned on the radio, twirling the dial to the Milford country-music station.
‘‘I ain’t scared,” she said once again. She took off her costume and slipped into the pink flannel nightgown Lauren lent her. It was just about right. “I seen things, you know, lots of things. Nothing scares me.” Colleen was getting into the bed by kicking her legs under the covers.
“Uh, yeah,” said Lauren, recalling the chase on the lawn. “Nothing scares me, either. You sure he won’t be back?” She moved to the doorway.
Colleen leaned over and clicked off the table lamp with familiarity. “He won’t be back,” she said. “He’s got the ’partment all to himself now.” The radio played softly.
Lauren shook her head and went into her room. She approached the bedside stand, opened the creaky drawer and looked at the loaded Army pistol her brother had given her. He said you had to be careful in the country. She closed the drawer and began undressing. She slipped on her flannel nightgown and wiggled, as Colleen had done, into her bed.
Piglet sat by the bed, looking expectantly up at the bed, then at Lauren. Lauren smiled at the routine, slapped the quilt and the dog jumped up on the bed. Lauren hugged her, the dog licked Lauren’s arms and face. Lauren began singing to her in a soft, falsetto voice, “Pretty dog, pretty dog, she’s so soft, she’s so sweet.”
Lauren stopped and cocked her head toward the guest room — her old room, actually, a duplication of her childhood bedroom — and listened to the faint sound of Shelby Lynn on the radio. Lauren knew what Colleen was doing: looking through the semi-darkness at the pictures of dogs on the walls; staring at the large photo of Lauren’s family, of Lauren’s mother, who, as the tallest, was positioned, quite naturally, in front of Lauren’s father, who is being pulled into view by Lauren who is looking at her brother who is making a face. Lauren waited for the click of the bedside light switch and the routine.
“Is that your brother?”
Lauren stroked her dog. Did she hear a noise outside? “He’s dead. Go to sleep.”
Lauren waited for the light to be shut off.
“This sure is a nice room. I’m going to like it here. I knew you’d let me stay. We’ll be like a family.”
Click.
