Crash Diet: Stories Page 13

  I turn that card over and stare at the picture of Marilyn Monroe, bent over, her hands keeping that dress from blowing all the way up. Boy, Rhonda couldn’t really think I’d ever look like that, but Rhonda kind of looks like it, boobs and all. I had planned to tell her that but she didn’t call that weekend. Buddy had been in a wreck, she wrote me later. He got twenty stitches in his head. “Is she still with that man?” Mama asked me once, and I just said, “No.” I didn’t tell her how Elwood had taken all the money that she had saved and left. I didn’t tell how Rhonda had herself a job as a restaurant manager and was making so much money she didn’t know what to do with it except travel. She traveled all over the country, all the places you’d ever want to see. One of my favorite cards is of the Grand Canyon and it is beautiful. It says, “It’ll take your breath away!”

  Didn’t take my breath! Still breathing, still smoking, too. HA! You’re going to love this place, Bunny. I’m thinking I might settle here. I’ll fly you out, OK? It’s sweet what you said in your letter (before Elwood robbed me!) about how you’ve made me a gift. Just wait until you see all the gifts I have for you! They fill up one whole room of the condo I’m staying in. It’ll be like Christmas when we get together. I’m glad you like that boy—what’s his name?—in your 4-H group. Let him know you like him, you know? Take my advice. They will be lined up for you real soon like they are for me here. Whoops! There’s Bronco (a nickname) right now. Love, R

  I still don’t like to think about the time I got that card. It’s been over a year now, but I’ve never been able to look at Rudy Thompson since. I waited for him after the 4-H meeting. I remember it all like it’s a movie or a postcard. I was wearing Rhonda’s blue-jean jacket, and I had on some hoop earrings and some lipstick that I had put on in the bathroom right after our meeting. I had just been told that I had the best piece of sewing, and Rudy had gotten a blue ribbon for his pet pig. “Hi, there,” I said when Rudy came out. I tried to say it the way Rhonda would; I let my eyes droop a little like Rhonda used to do to that man at Ho Jo’s when she wanted the night off. “I need to talk to you,” I whispered, because that’s what Rhonda on the New Mexico postcard had suggested. “He’ll have to step closer,” she had written. “So wear some cologne so you don’t smell like Thriftway.”

  “Yeah?” Rudy stepped closer, and I felt my heart beating so fast when he did. “What is it?” He has green green eyes and kind of rusty-looking hair. He was wearing a belt buckle that had a big bull on it.

  “I like your belt buckle,” I whispered and closed my eyes, leaned back against a tree like Rhonda would do. “It’s sexy.” That was the part I practiced the longest. Rhonda had said it always worked for her.

  “What?” Rudy acted like he was frozen, and it made me have to stand up straight, to smear that lipstick off a little with the back of my hand. “Bunny?” he asked, making the most horrible face, like he’d been expecting Coca-Cola and got buttermilk. Then they were all there, everybody, listening in, Rudy’s face so red I thought he might kill me. “Sexy?” a boy called out. “Wooo wooo, Rudy!” All the girls were just staring at me like I might have been green and I wished I was green. I wished I was dead, but more than anything, I wished I was with Rhonda in one of those fancy motels where she likes to go, places with big bathtubs for a bubble bath and champagne, though Rhonda says I have to wait a little longer, maybe a year, before champagne. I ran home as fast as I could; that word, sexy, sounded in my head over and over like the principal at school on the P. A. system or like what Rhonda had described when she was in that bar that got raided that time. Rhonda said the police had done that, called everybody out, took everybody to the police station, and made them spend the night. And there I was just minding my own business, she had written. What ignorant pigs! They made me take my clothes off! HA! I know why, too—a cheap thrill for the deprived slobs who work there.

  I have never been able to look Rudy in the eye since. It has taken a whole year for people to stop teasing me. I’d be in the cafeteria line and I’d hear somebody say, “It’s so sexy.” Sometimes Rhonda doesn’t stay in one place long enough to get my cards, but she did get the one that told what happened. She wrote me right back, too. She sent a card that she must have saved from South of the Border way back because it had a picture of that giant-size Mexican Pedro which I still have not seen. The 4-H people who can talk to me without laughing told me that you can see that giant Pedro for miles. Anyway, now I don’t even have to see it for real because I’ve got the picture:

  Bunny. I’m sorry that what’s-his-name didn’t bite the hook. They don’t always, you know? Why I had a man break up with me just last week. (Of course, I had threatened to tell his wife. I hear that’s what Marilyn Monroe did to the Kennedy boys so I figured what the hell?) DON’T mess with married ones. They are never right in the head. That should just let you know that what’s-his-name is dumb like most of the men in that town. I hate your boss. Did I ever tell you? He tried to get me to you-know-what once and I was insulted. If he ever makes up bad things about me, that’s why. I’ll be so glad when you can move and be with me. Then you’ll meet some nice people. Love, R

  One of the funniest cards has Mona Lisa on the front and Rhonda had written: “Well, I see Mama is trying to smile.” And then another has a cartoon of a two-headed Martian and the Martian is disagreeing with himself. One head says, “I want to go out,” and the other head says, “I want to stay home.” Below it is printed, “Ever have trouble making up your mind? Two heads are not better than one.” Rhonda had written: “I see the Townsends haven’t changed a bit! HA!” Of course, I would never show any of these cards. I keep hoping that when I move and live with Rhonda, Mama and Ned and Billy will start to be nice to her.

  Another funny card has a picture of this dog peeing on a tobacco plant and it says, “Have your cigarettes been tasting funny?” Rhonda had written, “You better not be smoking. If you do, you will love it and never ever stop. Jim and I go through five packs a day.” When I got that one I smoked one cigarette. I didn’t like it, but it had made me feel kind of grown-up and close to Rhonda. It was just last summer that I smoked it. I took one out of my boss’s pack, and then I sat out back of Thriftway on an orange crate and smoked it. It was kind of nice in a way because I could hear people talking inside and hear the big freezer humming, Willie Nelson on the radio, but I felt real safe. “You can always count on me, Bunny,” Rhonda had just written on a beautiful silver valentine card.

  But now I’m looking for those cards that came right after hard times, so maybe I can figure out what’s keeping Rhonda so long from writing this time. There’s the one after Elwood robbed her, the one after she had to take her clothes off and stay in the jail, and here’s another one. It’s from the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Rhonda had circled the blond head of a woman that’s in the crowd looking, and from the back it really does look like her. “That’s me!” she had written and then on the back:

  Hey Bunny! Whew! I have finally seen the light. (Get it?) I’ve had hard times, have decided men aren’t worth the trouble. You’ll see. All they want is to get in your pants or steal your money. Don’t fall for the tricks. I’ve been trashed too many times but now I’m starting over: good job/new friends. By the time you graduate (and you do need that diploma), I’ll be ready for you to move in. Right now I’m staying with a friend who says I really should be an actress! Imagine!! This city has everything! I have a whole new life. I don’t eat meat. Love and Liberty, Rhonda

  I love the New York cards the best. They are so funny and happy. The pictures have all these bridges and lights and the Empire State building, places you only hear about. But there are still other hard-time cards. I had gone a week without hearing from her, and then I got this one that has people at Niagara Falls. The water is so beautiful, falling there; there’s a rainbow in the spray, and people are just standing there in yellow raincoats like the Safety Patrol people wear, standing so close to the little fence there before it drops off. I lov
e the picture and I remember how glad I was to see it after having waited so long.

  This is not a honeymoon so don’t even think it! Randy (he’s a good friend) came with me. I don’t know what I would have done that last week in New York without him! He saved me. That’s why I haven’t written. Hard Times, but thanks to Randy, I’m okay. He is such a card, looks real “sexy” in his yellow raincoat. How are you? Knocking the boys dead? I bet you are . . . more later. Love, R

  After Randy ran off without a word, after she had taken care of him, practically supported him for six months, there was another lapse. That’s why I was so worried at the sophomore dance. I don’t know if I would’ve had a good time anyway; I went with Sandy Scott, who has teeth bigger than mine and a neck like a giraffe. I wasn’t going to go at all, but Rhonda always told me that I should go places “because you never know who you’ll meet. You can go on a date. It doesn’t mean you have to marry him! My God, I’d have been married a hundred times by now!” Sandy Scott asked me to dance one time, and the rest of the night we just sat at our table and watched other people. He folded his napkin in and out like an accordion and told me about his daddy’s heifer who had won a prize at the state fair. I guess he had heard what everybody else had heard, that I had liked Rudy that time. Everybody knew that Rudy’s daddy always has prize hogs and cows. Rudy was out on the floor slow-dancing, and it made me feel funny inside to watch him; I guess I felt funny because of all that Rhonda had told me about what men will try to do, and because I hadn’t heard from her. When I finally did hear, she was back down in South Carolina and had gotten a job in a Myrtle Beach bar. It’s a long way from Ho Jo’s, she had said and I was so relieved. When Sandy Scott called and asked me to go see Return of the Jedi, I went, but I didn’t meet anybody else and I didn’t have a very good time.

  I think that Rhonda has probably moved again and not had time to write, or maybe she’s been suntanning, or going to that amusement park she’s told me about. I close my eyes and try to imagine all of the pictures in my mind before going to sleep. I see Rhonda and a handsome man riding the Ferris wheel, while I stand on the ground and look up at them, a huge teddy bear in my arms that a boy like Rudy has won for me over at the shooting range. Rhonda waves her hand, her yellow hair flying in the wind every time they hit the top, and me and that boy wave back, all of us happy to be there together down in Myrtle Beach. I hear my door crack open and I know my mama’s standing there like she does every night. She’s checking to make sure I’m in my bed and have not run off like Rhonda. “She’s like a prison guard,” Rhonda told me years ago. “She will never get over the fact that she couldn’t hold on to Daddy.” I don’t remember my daddy at all; I only know what Rhonda has told me, that he was good-looking and full of life and it would have killed him to stay there. “She’s not going to keep me either,” Rhonda had said. “And don’t you worry, Bunny. I’ll come rescue you one day.” Now I hear Mama shuffling down the hall, and it makes me wish that things were different for all of us. Sometimes I feel like I don’t understand Mama at all.

  “Did he touch you?” she had asked when I got home from the dance. I shook my head and then she was crying and holding onto me. “I’m sorry,” she kept saying, but I’m not sure for what. Maybe because Rhonda was gone.

  It’s been two weeks now since I’ve heard from Rhonda. I’m sitting out back on my orange crate and my boss doesn’t even care. He’s been asking about Rhonda lately, asking in a way where he doesn’t laugh and his eyebrows don’t go that funny way. “Where do you guess she is?” he asked just before I came out here. I told him I bet she has a new job in a new city, or maybe she’s run off and gotten married. I hear the bell at the front of the store ring so I know I need to be getting back in so I can ring the person up. I’m just ready for the day to be over so I can get home and check the mail. I bet it’ll be there, some funny message about the Townsend girls or Mama smiling.

  “Hey,” I hear, but I can’t see through the wire mesh of the screen door to know who it is. Before I can ask, Rudy Thompson steps out here and leans against the building where somebody has spray-painted GO TO HELL in lopsided letters. “Haven’t seen you at 4-H lately,” he says. “Or school.” That’s true, because I haven’t been in three days—been going down to Sikes Pond and sitting instead. “You been sick?”

  “What’s it to you?” I ask, remembering that that’s what Rhonda had said to a man one time. Rhonda said, “That silenced the jerk!” I must have done it wrong because Rudy just shrugs and his face turns pink. Now I don’t know what to say, so I just wave a stick in the dirt and wait for him to leave. They will always leave you. One minute he’s there and the next minute he’s gone. How did he know I wasn’t at school?

  “I was just hoping you weren’t sick.” He steps forward and puts his shoe up on the orange crate; his foot is so close, I could retie his shoe if I wanted. Oh yeah, they love you when they can get something. In your pants and in your wallet. I shake my head and, for the first time in a year, I look Rudy Thompson in the face. You got to learn to stare them down. Get the upper hand. His eyes are just as green as before, as green as that Atlantic Ocean; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; The Grand Strand. Where is she? “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he says and looks away. “You remember that time—” I know what he’s going to say and I don’t even want to hear it.

  “No, I don’t remember,” I tell him before he can finish. Sometimes I play dumb for Elwood because he thinks it’s cute. HA!

  “Well, I wanted to tell you I was sorry that I didn’t stick up for you,” he says. “I just didn’t know what to say. I mean, you looked so grown-up that day and all, and I had never seen you look like that.” Wear my blue-jean jacket and make up your eyes like I told you. That’ll get him! I bet one of these days you look just like me, Little Bunny! (Hope you don’t mind. HA!)

  I see the mailman’s truck go by and I know his routine so well; he’ll be at my house in fifteen minutes. “I gotta go,” I say, and standing, I take off my Thriftway apron.

  “I wanted to ask you to go to the movies,” he says, and I don’t have time to think. I have fourteen minutes to check out with my boss and run home. “I’ve been wanting to ask you but—”

  “I gotta go,” I say. “Really, I have to go.” I open the screen door, my mind on Rhonda and the card. If my mama gets it, it’ll be gone.

  “Will you think about it?” he asks, his forehead wrinkling, and I nod, once again looking at those clear green eyes. Keep ’em guessing. I have twelve minutes. “Can I call you?”

  “Yes,” I say and run through the store, the buzz of the freezer so loud, my steps so loud.

  “Hey, what’s the hurry?” my boss asks. He looks to the back of the store where Rudy is standing and still looking confused. Shaking his head, my boss laughs like he knows everything, but I don’t take the time to hear what he’s gotta say. I throw down my apron and I am gone, running so fast down the street, the sun low and gold behind the big tree branches. Rudy Thompson’s face keeps popping in my mind, but I don’t have time to think about it right now. Sometimes people will ask you out just to use you. I turn the corner just in time to see the mail truck stop in front of my house. I run faster and pretend I don’t see Mama out there on the front porch. She is walking down the sidewalk, but I get there first and reach my hand in.

  “I need to talk to you, Saralyn,” Mama says, and I wait for her to turn around so I can see if there’s a card for me. “Why are you so eager for the mail?” she has asked before, and I always come up with one reason or another. I haven’t shown or told her about a card in months now, but I know she knows. I know because every time Rhonda’s name comes up, which isn’t real often, they all look at me like I know something. They have tricked me a few times by saying things like, “I bet Rhonda is in Canada,” only to have me slip and give the real answer. I have quit talking.

  “There’s no card from her,” Mama says, and I turn slowly, so angry. “Rhonda has gotten herself killed.” />
  I wait a long time before I go inside; I wait until it’s dark and the light there in the living room comes on. When I get inside the doorway, I hear the policeman saying they got no traces, that Rhonda was there in the Sleepy Pelican Motel somewhere near Georgia. I listen while he tells all about it: it looked like there had been a struggle, looked like they had been drinking. Shot there in the heart. I don’t want to even get a picture in my mind.

  Nobody at school has said a thing about Rhonda to me. My boss just said he was sorry, real sorry. “Let it be a lesson, Saralyn,” my mama said, and I wanted to be called Bunny so bad I thought I’d die. I went to the movies with Rudy Thompson and afterwards we went and sat down near the pond. He didn’t ask me about Rhonda but I knew he wanted to know. They will use you to get what they want. I can’t wait for you to get out of that hole. I kept hearing Rhonda talking to me the whole time that Rudy and I sat there. He held my hand and it made me feel so funny all over, like maybe I was doing something wrong. He asked me why I never went on the school trips or club trips out of town, and I said because I didn’t want to go anywhere, didn’t need to go anywhere. “I know what it all looks like,” I told him, and then I saw the real pictures, the motel room where they said she had lived, the way they found her without any clothes at all. It made me feel cold all over and I told Rudy I had to go home. I told Rudy if he was after me to use me up that he better forget it. “I like you, Bunny,” he said, and I wanted so bad to believe him.

  Rudy still calls me; he called just this morning to ask me if I wanted to ride down to South Carolina with him and his mama and daddy. “We’re going to the beach for the weekend,” he said. “You can tell your mama that my whole family’s going.” I imagined me and Rudy on that Ferris wheel, the stuffed bear, putt-putt ranges. But it was all too close.

  “I’ve got to work,” I told him. “But how about we go to the show when you get back?” Rudy paused like he was disappointed, but then he said he thought he knew why I didn’t want to go down there. He said he wanted to go with me, steady, just me, and I said all right.