Randy White: Gone

I knew I shouldn’t bring up my friend Nathan Pace, but I did because he was all I had as a defense. “What about Nate? I have dinner with him two or three times a week, and he’s a man.”

“In the looks department, maybe!” my mother countered, a wicked grin on her face. “I used to think the same thing about Liberace. Only difference between him and that butterfly Nathan is, one of them had nice hair and played the piano.” Loretta’s eyes started to drift. “Nathan don’t play the piano, does he?”

“Violin,” I said, feeling tired. It was how Nathan and I had met-in high school band, two outsiders thrown together less by mutual interests than a mutual fear of not measuring up.

Her eyes snapped back.

“Keeping company with a muscle-bound homosexual is no way to attract a man, Hannah. Not the ones who got no interest in wearing your panties, anyway.”

I tried again, even though it was pointless, by mentioning our good-looking UPS driver, whom I enjoyed seeing in his brown uniform, particularly when he wore shorts. “Christian Rhoades is getting friendly,” I argued. “I suppose you haven’t noticed how often he stops even when he doesn’t have a package.”

“Men in uniforms!” Mamma snapped as if that meant something. “A handsome boy young as Christian, with a good-paying job to boot, he won’t let hisself get trapped by a woman your age. You’re bad as Hannah Three sometimes. I swear you are.”

I looked at my toes, which is something I’d promised myself I’d stop doing-acting ashamed when Loretta got that scolding tone in her voice.

“That Seasons man still married?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, which was not the first lie I had told this woman who had carried me in the womb but was slowly becoming a stranger.

“A wife don’t matter to rich men,” Loretta countered with a sniff. “They collect lonely spinsters like bottle caps. Especially spinsters with mileage as low as yours.” I shook my head and sighed while she added, “It’s a poor hunter who waits for the game to come to him, Hannah Smith. You did the same in high school-sat around moping instead of getting out, meeting boys. How you expect to catch fish if you don’t dangle some bait? You need to stop being so prudish!”

I said, “What? ”

“Dress pretty for a change, honey-that’s all I’m saying. Something without too many buttons and straps. Lawrence Seasons is a snob, but he’d probably treat you good for a couple of months just to prove he can afford it. And he might have a workman on the payroll who’s younger and got some money. And less morals than our good-looking UPS driver!”

Finally, it was all too clear what my befuddled mother was suggesting. I stood taller and pointed to the kitchen door. “Go inside right now! I’ll be in after I’ve thanked Arlis.”

“Darling, I’m only saying it’s the rusty hinges that snap first. As wrong as your Aunt Hannah was about her morals, she was right when it comes to a woman’s hormone tensions being dangerous. At the grocery, I read in a magazine that’s why Lizzie Borden did what she did with that axe. And she was a girl in her twenties just like you!”

Actually, I’d turned thirty-one earlier that June, which I was about to point out, but then Loretta became secretive and wagged a finger for me to lean closer. “It’s not like I don’t know what you do to calm your frustrations. But using a plastic gadget can’t be healthy, child.”

My ears were suddenly warm. I said, “Pardon me?”

Loretta lowered her voice. “I found the electric candle you kept hidden in your dresser. That’s not what God had in mind when he gave us hormones, honey.”

My face feeling hot, I turned my back and was reaching for the door but could still hear my mother saying, “First time I plugged it in, the thing went shooting across the floor like a snake on a griddle. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me scream…”

The woman was still talking as I walked, then jogged down the Indian mound toward the dock. I still had almost two hours before my meeting. Time enough to get to my makeshift apartment, shower, change, and then make my appointment-if I hurried.

–

I DID HURRY, cowboying my skiff fast across the flats, running backcountry through the secret cuts and tidal riffs that I had learned as a girl, and was still learning, in truth, because currents can change shallow bottom as fast as wind can change the shape of sand and snow. I was mad at Loretta for invading my privacy with her sneaky ways and her tainted suspicions, so I drove harder than usual, eager to put some distance between the house where I’d grown up and the future that lay ahead. It’s not that I felt bitter about my past. I didn’t-not on a daily basis, anyway. I was just weary of the life I’d lived with my mother, eager to shed the past as cleanly as some creatures can shed their skins. It’s not that easy, of course, but it is doable-or so I’ve convinced myself. All I know for sure is, the only way to leave something behind is to keep moving ahead.

That was easier said than done, though, after some of the things Loretta had said to me. Especially galling was her claim that I’d done nothing in high school but sit around and mope. Had the woman lost her memory along with the best half of her mind? I had gotten good grades, played clarinet in the band, swum on the varsity team, and always had a paying job of some sort, often working for my Uncle Jake-although, as even I had to admit, my teen years weren’t the happiest of times.

I still think of high school as the three long years I spent trying to recover from the upset of acne and middle school. I was the gawky, silent girl in the back of the room who slouched because I was too tall and who used whatever I could to hide my face when someone tried to strike up a conversation. In all that time, I’d had only one date and kissed only one boy-my childhood neighbor, Delbert Fowler-whom I married six years after graduation because he joined the Army and believed he was going off to war where he might be killed by Malls-lums . From the way Delbert pronounced the word, I always suspected he pictured himself plinking away at a bunch of charging Nordstrom hoodlums wearing towels on their heads.

I was in my mid-twenties before another man gave me a second look, and almost thirty before men actually stopped and stared-even then I worried it was because of the few faint acne scars hidden by my hair. Only lately have I begun to suspect the truth. Men look at me now because they like what they see. Not that I’m sure it’s true-I’ll never feel the sort of confidence some have when it comes to being comfortable with their looks. But when I go striding by a group of men wearing jeans and a nice summer blouse, or stockings and a crisp skirt, what I see on their faces is a look of slow surprise. It’s as if they don’t expect to be interested, but then their brain gives them a kick to remind them of what their eyes are actually seeing.

I hope it’s because I’m a big woman, too big for a quick snapshot, so it takes men a while to put all the parts together. I’m beginning to believe it’s true because what I see next on their faces is usually a confused smile, like they’re boys who’ve been caught at something they enjoy but shouldn’t be doing.

Not that I spend my hours worrying about what men think. The last few years have been a happy, comfortable time for me, and I’m content enough not to rush. Some of us mature and blaze early in life. Others take longer to grow into the person they are meant to be. I bloomed very late, which, in truth, has surprised no one more than me. Maybe my brain will never fully replace the person I used to be with the woman I’ve become because, like a lot of people, I grew up feeling lonely and unattractive and that’s the person I wake up with every morning. It’s the same girl who sometimes still bawls herself to sleep at night. But when I get into one of those moods, feeling down, just a stubbed toe away from an hour-long crying jag, I go to my closet, lay out my best clothes, turn the lights down real low, and stand myself in front of the mirror.