Lindsay Hunter - Ugly Girls

Now he just wanted a shower. And there was Myra, flat on her back in the bathroom, a towel rolled up under her head. He’d seen the cluster of empties by the couch, had thought about having to brace himself as he walked through their bedroom door, but he thought he’d be able to shower first, that warm water soaking into his skin and soothing his muscles some before he’d have to tense them back up when he saw Myra.

She opened one eye, lifted her head, the skin on her neck collapsing in an accordion of flesh. “Jim?”

“Yes.”

“I must have fallen asleep in here. I’m sick.”

“I know.”

“Am I ugly?” she asked him, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Is that why you’re looking at me?”

“No, you ain’t ugly.” It was true. She was a beautiful woman when he’d met her, a tall woman with bright eyes and red lips. And she was still beautiful. Like how a prize garden that had gone to weed in a few corners was still beautiful.

“You know I like to keep myself up,” she said. “I hate for you to see me this way. I got a little tipsy last night.”

Jim felt impatient for his shower. He’d had this conversation with her so many times, in so many ways. If he yelled and stomped she’d only do it again, as soon as she could. He couldn’t bring himself to muster the kind of energy he’d need to feel that angry about it anyway. And if he tried to reason with her she’d cry, beg his forgiveness, and he’d have to give it, repeating himself over and over, just to calm her down. Best to just let her talk. Help her off the floor. Ask if she wanted eggs. And then shut the door as soon as she was on the other side.

He held out his hand to her. She took it, pulling on him to stand. She held on to the tiny counter for balance, pushed her other hand through her hair to smooth it. There was a messy imprint of her eyelashes in dried mascara on her cheek, a cluster of black legs.

“I had a friend over,” she said. “He kept getting me fresh ones. I didn’t realize how much I was drinking.”

This was new. Myra didn’t have friends, not these days, and definitely not male ones. “He?” Jim said.

“This young kid from the neighborhood. He’s got a crush. Sometimes I need someone to talk to when you ain’t here at night.”

Jim knew Myra liked to reach out, feel around, see if he still had buttons to push. Would he be jealous? Angry with her? Would he feel guilty that she needed to talk to some kid because he wasn’t there, wasn’t there a lot?

And he did feel angry, just a shade. Not because of how she was spending her time. That was so far down the list of shit he had to tend to with Myra that it nearly dropped off. He felt angry because he never, not once, got to just come home and get in the shower. First he had to make sure Myra was alive, drive Perry to school, and now go out and punch some neighbor kid for getting fresh on his own couch with his own wife, because it was what was expected of him.

She’s lying, anyway . The thought came to him in blinking neon clarity. She was lying to get him to do something about it.

And now it dawned on him that she hadn’t even asked about Perry, hadn’t wondered what the plan was or if she could do anything to help. Had risen as empty as a scarecrow, filled the room with the brackish fumes of her breath. His body was so tight he felt like he could shatter.

“The other night a man asked me did I have a teenaged daughter,” he said. “A prisoner. I popped him in the eye. It bled all over. It bled so much I felt sick. But I didn’t even think twice, I just did it. You got a teenage daughter sitting in jail right now and you haven’t done shit except invite some boy in to watch you get ugly.”

Myra let go of the counter, stood as straight as she could. Put a shaking hand back up to her hair. “She’s there because she wanted to be there,” she said. “She knows right from wrong. It ain’t my fault she acts the way she does.”

It was what Myra always said. Jim could feel his heart pounding, his body hurt even more because of it.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, put his hands on her shoulders to steer her out. “And go see about getting Perry out. If you make eggs I’ll eat them. If you don’t, that’s okay too. Long as you get out of this bathroom and let me be.”

“I touched him,” Myra said. Her eyes moved back and forth rapidly across his face, searching for how this had landed. “I touched him where it counted and I would have kept touching him if my sickness hadn’t overcome me.”

Jim’s hands felt like they might crack with how hard he was trying not to shake her. Instead he steered her out the door.

“If that’s true,” he said, “then I feel sorry for you.”

“He liked it,” Myra was saying, but Jim closed the door, pushed the little nub lock. “He liked it,” she said louder, and slapped the door with the palm of her hand.

Jim turned on the shower and undressed. In the mirror he saw a man who looked like all the air got sucked out. The mirror slowly fogged over, and he was just a smear. A blur of a man, could be anyone.

Myra called to him through the door. “I can’t hear you,” he yelled back, but in truth he had heard her. I wanted to be touching you , she’d said.

But that was probably a lie as well. Finally, he stepped into the shower.

HE’D FALLEN ASLEEP in Perry’s bed. Had put his mouth on the stiff part of her pillow, the part where she drooled, and drooled into it himself. Before that, had spit into his hand, meaning to touch himself, go for it, his cock still hard from Myra’s touch, but he couldn’t get up the nerve. It felt wrong, it felt like something he should be saving for her, not keeping all to himself. And it’d be all the more sweeter when it did happen, if he held off. He’d fallen asleep envisioning it: he and Perry in her room, in his room, on a bed of leaves in the woods somewhere, pulled off to the side of the road in the backseat of his momma’s car.

Didn’t wake until the morning, still hard as a rock. Jim just on the other side of the door and mad enough by the sound of it to kill a puppy. Perry had once told him that she snuck out her window at night. It was a sliding window, about three feet wide, and he knew it was his only chance. But his back felt glued to her bed, his limbs useless. If he moved they’d hear. Jim would beat on the door until the dresser Jamey had pushed in front of it gave way. He listened as they fought, not two feet away.

He liked it. Jamey heard how desperate she sounded, wanting Jim to get mad, probably wanting Jim to shake her, rip off her robe even, make her see who her man was. He’d read similar shit in his momma’s paperbacks, romances with intense love scenes where the woman always ended up begging, apologizing, offering herself up in one way or another. Jim had handled it all wrong, shutting the door like that. He could’ve had himself a little something.

“I wanted to be touching you,” he heard her say. She was crying now, and soon he heard the clink of bottles as she picked them up. He didn’t believe that shit, not for a minute. She wanted to be touching him , her Pete.

He could smell toast burning, butter heating in a pan. So she was making Jim breakfast after all. Which meant she was at the far end of the trailer, in the kitchen. And the shower was still running, so that’s where Jim was. Jamey pushed himself out of the bed, pulled his pants up. Slid the window open inch by inch, as gently as he could. Had nearly put one leg out before he remembered. He crawled to the door and pushed the dresser back to where it was. If anyone was listening they’d be able to hear it drag across the stiff carpet. Jamey felt his stomach in his throat at the thought. He heard the toaster pop, heard Myra getting a plate down. He went back to the window, got one leg and then the other out, jumped and landed in a crouch. He crawled, again, and didn’t stand until he was two trailers down.