Authors: Joyce Maynard
That gets my boner going again. I’m dripping with sweat. I say that sounds good. I can barely talk at this point but she’s back to that voice she uses on TV.
“I mean, I’d want to keep a low profile for a while. And naturally I wouldn’t want to broadcast it at work or anything. But eventually I’ll be finding a position someplace else. It’s just a matter of time.”
Now I look back on it, naturally, I can see all the problems that would’ve come up. Now I know it wasn’t ever going to work. She wasn’t ever going to be mine. But at the time alls I heard was how we could make love whenever we wanted to. That’s the way it was for me. It wasn’t just about fucking anymore, although that was incredible. It was about love.
So I said yeah. We were on. I’d talk to Russell. But I was pretty sure he wouldn’t give us no trouble. He was always up for anything.
Y
EAH, HE ASKED ME
if I’d help off her old man. You’re fucking right I said yes. Not because of this shit about how tough her life is. Money, man. She was going to pay me a thousand bucks.
You could tell Jimmy was pussy whipped all right. I mean, he’d of jumped off a cliff, sniffing after that tight little crotch of hers. The boy was gone. I just needed new wheels.
The plan was we’d get these gloves so we wouldn’t leave no fingerprints. My car made too much fucking noise, so she was going to lend us hers. She’d leave it with the keys inside at the parking lot over at the mall, and then while she was in there shopping we’d take the Datsun over to her place, get in the back door that she’d leave open, only make it look like we broke the locks. We’d trash the house and shit, then wait for him to come home from work. I’d tackle him, Jimmy’d shoot, on account of it was him that was getting the pussy and all I was getting was cash. Then we’d take off in the car, back to the mall. Leave her car where we found it and cut out of there. No sweat. She’d come out with all her bags—and I mean, you knew she’d make sure plenty of people noticed her in stores, which wouldn’t be a problem. Then she’d drive home, open the door, and freak out naturally. The grieving wife.
She even made this list on her computer of shit to remember for chrissake. Like he’s got this exercise bike sitting in the kitchen right by the door so don’t bump into it or you’ll get real bruised, and be sure when we’re trashing the place not to wreck her stereo because it’s a real bitch to reconnect all the components. Just mess around in her jewelry drawer and stuff. And could we try and make sure when we shot him not to do it where he’d drip on her carpet she just installed? She tells us to throw the gloves in the harbor and dust the gun off to make sure there’s no prints on it before we get it back to Lydia. And one more thing: The dog’s got to be shut in the bathroom. Seeing something like that, Larry getting shot and all, could really traumatize him.
I think I’m pretty cool, but this chick is strictly Eskimo material. She tells me it should take six, eight weeks to get the insurance money. In the meantime she’ll give me this gold chain her husband had in ten days or so. Once things quiet down.
Jimmy’s sweating like a pig, not really listening to any of this, you can tell. He keeps trying to make out with her, kiss her neck. Her, she flicks him off like he’s a bug landed on a piece of meat. The cunt, Lydia, she keeps giggling like she’s been sniffing glue or something. Can’t quit laughing. I can tell it’s up to me—the Maretto chick and me anyways—to pull this thing off right. Jimmy won’t be good for shit.
The plan is to do it Valentine’s Day. Not for any message or nothing, that was just the day it worked out to be. We get our clothes all set, the gloves and all. Her and Lydia are all set to go shopping. “I could use a new bathing suit,” she says. “It’s always good to have a girlfriend along when you’re swimsuit shopping, to give you their opinion.” She wasn’t kidding neither.
That afternoon, Lydia gets her old lady’s gun, and we buy the bullets. Jimmy and me take a few practice shots down at the clam flats, just assassinating sea gulls. Gun works fine. We smoke a little weed, get to the parking lot at seven-thirty, right on schedule. He’s nervous, you can tell, but he’s really got hisself psyched too. “After tonight she’s all mine,” he says. “Then I’m going to fuck her till it drops off.”
Sure, I think to myself. Right. But it ain’t none of my business.
I drive. She’s got this tape in the cassette, starts playing right when I turn the key. I mean it didn’t mean nothing, only it kind of made you jump, hearing this music come blasting out of nowhere when you wasn’t expecting it.
So we drive over her place. No trouble finding it. She’d told us how we should pull in round the back, where nobody’d spot the car or nothing. Door was open, just like she said. I step inside.
That’s when the dog starts going crazy. I mean, you’d think there was a whole pack of dogs in there, instead of one little mutt, from the sound of it. He’s howling and jumping up and stuff. I reach for the gun in Jimmy’s hand, thinking I’ll just blast him too. Jimmy stops me.
“Fuck man,” he says. “She loves that dog. She’d go apeshit if you killed it.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I say to him. “Turn on the lights and invite the whole fucking neighborhood over?”
“It’s no good,” Jimmy says. “We got to split. We can’t do it tonight.”
I don’t even try arguing with him. You can tell the guy means it. He’s done for the night.
“Christ, man,” I say, once we’re back in her car heading to the mall. “You think I got nothing better to do than drive around town checking out animal life? Now we got to return the gun and everything. I could’ve been down by the beach balling some chick myself.”
Jimmy wants to go in the mall and explain it to her, how come we couldn’t finish the job. You can tell he’s relieved, but he’s scared too, that she’ll be mad. “Forget it, man,” I tell him. “It wouldn’t look good, later, if someone saw us tonight.” I mean we don’t exactly look like the type that would be wandering around the bathing suit section of some fancy store. Looking for a chick like her.
So we leave a note in the car, on the back of a gum wrapper. “Dog barked. Better luck next time.” Then we cut out.
When Mrs. Maretto found out, man, was she pissed. You should’ve heard her lay into Jimmy. I tell you, if things had worked out for them, he would’ve got a different kind of punishment. Endless pussy whipping. But try and tell him that.
A
LL THAT WINTER WE
used to drive around in her car, me and Suzanne and Jimmy, drinking Southern Comfort and listening to tapes. Not Russell. She never liked him so much, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think she was his type either. But the three of us, we were just like that. We did everything together. Well, not everything of course.
I didn’t have my license yet but Suzanne let me drive so her and Jimmy could make out. She was a different person, when it was the three of us together like that, from how she was when we were making our video, and giving her weather reports on TV. She’d take her hair out of the ponytail she wore. Then she’d sit on his lap, stick her hand down his pants and stuff. At first I’d be embarrassed, but you got used to it. They said if it wasn’t for me, they never could’ve been together. If it wasn’t for me being with them, everybody’d be suspicious, instead of just figuring we were working on the video. She said I was kind of like that nurse in the
Romeo and Juliet
movie, that believes in their love and tries to help them be together, when the whole rest of the world is against them. Without her, they never could’ve got together. And that’s how it was, with them and me.
We did dumb stuff. We’d buy pizza and have food fights. Go to malls and look at tapes. Go down to the boardwalk and get cotton candy. One time we went to this car dealership to test-drive a convertible. I mean if it was just Jimmy and me of course no one would take us seriously. But her being the way she was, the salesman was happy to let us take the car.
But mostly we’d just drive around. Suzanne was always saying how much she missed just hanging out and being crazy like that. She said Larry used to be like that, but then he got all serious, and now he wasn’t any fun anymore. “It’s like he’s dead already,” she said.
I always hated it when she wanted to talk about the plan. I don’t think it was exactly Jimmy’s favorite thing to do either, but Suzanne said it was important to get all the details worked out so nothing went wrong. And of course we knew she was right.
So we’d be driving along, blasting the music or sticking her bra out the window, tied to the antenna or something, and then she’d get that other way all of a sudden, like she was on the news, only it wasn’t the weather she’d want to talk about, it was stuff like “Where are you going to put the gloves after it’s over?” or “How do you think I should act when I find the body?”
The plan was, Jimmy and Russell were going to make it look like somebody just broke into the condo to steal the TV and stuff. They’d hide in the living room closet, and then when he came home they’d shoot him. Jimmy said Russell wanted to use a knife, on account of then they wouldn’t have to come up with a gun, but Suzanne had these brand-new white couches, and anyways, she was afraid if she saw all that blood she might just faint or something. My mom had this gun she bought after Chester left and she started hearing about all these sex killers on the loose. I said I figured they could use it, so long as they got it back without her knowing.
Jimmy and me were helping her just because we were all friends, naturally. But you knew Russell had to get something out of it. Suzanne said to tell Russell he could take Larry’s gold chain that he always wore, and some CDs. They had this portable color TV she thought he’d like. And later, when the insurance money came through, she’d pay him a thousand dollars. He was going to buy a car.
In the summer, when it was all over, Jimmy and Suzanne and me were going to take off in her car, and drive to Orlando. She was going to take us to Disney World. She was always telling us how great it was there—the rides and everything, and Epcot Center, where you could walk around for a day and feel like you’d seen the whole entire world, you never had to go any farther. She said they had these horses pulling carriages that take you all around. And everything’s so clean there, the minute a horse starts to drop a turd on the street, there’s some guy jumping up with a broom and dustpan to clean it up before it even hits the ground. That’s how perfect it is.
I
MET HIM AT
his family’s restaurant. I was sitting at the bar. We got to talking. It was a slow night. He pulled up a stool, fixed himself a sandwich, and sat down next to me.
You had to like this guy. And something else, you got the feeling he was really looking to talk to someone. Search me why it would be me, but I figured, no sweat. Which is how I happened to be the one. That he was having dinner with that night, I mean. The night he got killed.
Of course now, knowing what happened, you think back over that night, trying to remember any clue something could’ve been wrong. Maybe I missed something, but it sounded like the guy had it made. Somewhere along the line he even took out a picture of his wife to show me. “No kids yet,” he says. “But we’re working on it.” Big grin.
She was pretty, I remember that. Looked like a girl I used to go to school with, not that I dated her. Homecoming queen.
He said he went off-roading on weekends, and maybe I’d like to join him sometime. Sounded good to me. As long as it was OK with the wife.
One thing I do remember about that part. “My wife’s always tied up with these workshops and special projects, weekends,” he says to me. “That and shopping. I’m lucky if I’m still awake when she gets back from the mall.” He said he guessed that would change, once they had kids. “But she’s not your stay-at-home type,” he said. “She’s a career girl.”
I told him my wife sells Mary Kay. It works out nice—she can be home with the kids, and still bring in a little something extra, get out of the house, have some excitement.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. “If my wife had to be home all day, she’d go nuts.” Still, he knew she’d develop her maternal instinct or what have you, once the babies started coming. You could tell from the way she looked after their puppy. And there were these high school kids she’d befriended too, he said. Bunch of sick puppies, themselves. She’d really taken those kids under her wing. She really knew how to give of herself.
Funny to think, I guess I was the last one that saw him alive. Besides, you know, the ones who did him in.
S
HE SAID
I
REMINDED
her of Winona Ryder. Or I would once I got the extra weight off. She said I had porcelain skin, if I just wouldn’t go out in the sun and freckle it. Suzanne told me my skin is one of my most positive assets. What she did actually was help me make these two lists: one list of my beauty flaws, the other one with my assets. Every time I listed a flaw I had to think of one asset to cancel it out. Then she showed me all you had to do was learn how to accentuate your positive traits and conceal the negative.
Like for example my eyes. She said saving up for contact lenses was a beauty must. In the meantime I just shouldn’t wear my glasses unless I absolutely had to, like if I was walking down the street and somebody asked me what some sign said three blocks away, or it looked like I won the lottery and I had to read the fine print on my ticket. And I should keep doing my eye exercises, naturally.
My weight was a negative of course. But she said until I lost the weight I could just learn how to conceal my figure flaws. Padded shoulders for instance. Those make your waistline look smaller. She’d take me to the mall and we’d go window shopping sometimes for hours. Trying out different shades of blush. Her telling me what styles were good. Which colors went with my skin.
Sure I felt weird, getting my mother’s gun. It’s awesome if you stop and think about it, how you’re holding something in your hand that has the power to just bam, end a person’s life. One minute they’re walking into their house, just wondering what they’re going to fix for a snack or if there’s a good show on TV. The next minute, they’re just this lump on the floor, and you know they’ll never go shopping or celebrate Christmas or drink a Coke ever again.