Distortions

Wanda’s

When May’s mother went to find her father, May was left with her Aunt Wanda. She wasn’t really an aunt; she was a friend of her mother’s who ran a boardinghouse. Wanda called it a boardinghouse, but she rarely accepted boarders. There was only one boarder, who had been there six years. May had stayed there twice before. The first time was when she was nine, and her mother left to find her father, Ray, who had gone to the West Coast and had vacationed too long in Laguna Beach. The second time was when her mother was hung over and had to have “a little rest,” and she left May there for two days. The first time, she left her for almost two weeks, and May was so happy when her mother came back that she cried. “Where did you think Laguna Beach was?” her mother said. “A hop, skip, and a jump? Honey, Laguna Beach is practically across the world.”

The only thing interesting about Wanda’s is her boarder, Mrs. Wong. Mrs. Wong once gave May a little octagonal box full of pastel paper circles that spread out into flowers when they were dropped in water. Mrs. Wong let her drop them in her fishbowl. The only fish in the fishbowl is made of bright-orange plastic and is suspended in the middle of the bowl by a sinker. There are many brightly colored things in Mrs. Wong’s room, and May is allowed to touch all of them. On her door Mrs. Wong has a little heart-shaped piece of paper with “Ms. Wong” printed on it.

Wanda is in the kitchen, talking to May. “Eggs don’t have many calories, but if you eat eggs the cholesterol kills you,” Wanda says. “If you eat sauerkraut there’s not many calories, but there’s a lot of sodium, and that’s bad for the heart. Tuna fish is full of mercury — what’s that going to do to a person? Who can live on chicken? You know enough, there’s nothing for you to eat.”

Wanda takes a hair clip out of her pants pocket and clips back her bangs. She puts May’s lunch in front of her — a bowl of tomato soup and a slice of lemon meringue pie. She puts a glass of milk next to the soup bowl.

“They say that after a certain age milk is no good for you — you might as well drink poison,” she says. “Then you read somewhere else that Americans don’t have enough milk in their diet. I don’t know. You decide what you want to do about your milk, May.”

Wanda sits down, lights a cigarette, and drops the match on the floor.

“Your dad really picks swell times to disappear. The hot months come, and men go mad. What do you think your dad’s doing in Denver, honey?”

May shrugs, blows on her soup.

“How do you know, huh?” Wanda says. “I ask dumb questions. I’m not used to having kids around.” She bends to pick up the match. The tops of her arms are very fat. There are little bumps all over them.

“I got married when I was fifteen,” Wanda says. “Your mother got married when she was eighteen — she had three years on me — and what’s she do but drive all around the country rounding up your dad? I was twenty-one the second time I got married, and that would have worked out fine if he hadn’t died.”

Wanda goes to the refrigerator and gets out the lemonade. She swirls the container. “Shaking bruises it,” she says, making a joke. She pours some lemonade and tequila into a glass and takes a long drink.

“You think I talk to you too much?” Wanda says. “I listen to myself and it seems like I’m not really conversing with you — like I’m a teacher or something.”

May shakes her head sideways.

“Yeah, well, you’re polite. You’re a nice kid. Don’t get married until you’re twenty-one. How old are you now?”

“Twelve,” May says.

After lunch, May goes to the front porch and sits in the white rocker. She looks at her watch — a present from her father — and sees that one of the hands is straight up, the other straight down, between the Road-Runner’s legs. It is twelve-thirty. In four and a half hours she and Wanda will eat again. At Wanda’s they eat at nine, twelve, and five. Wanda worries that May isn’t getting enough to eat. Actually, she is always full. She never feels like eating. Wanda eats almost constantly. She usually eats bananas and Bit-O-Honey candy bars, which she carries in her shirt pocket. The shirt belonged to her second husband, who drowned. May found out about him a few days ago. At night, Wanda always comes into her bedroom to tuck her in. Wanda calls it tucking in, but actually she only walks around the room and then sits at the foot of the bed and talks. One of the stories she told was about her second husband, Frank. He and Wanda were on vacation, and late at night they sneaked onto a fishing pier. Wanda was looking at the lights of a boat far in the distance when she heard a splash. Frank had jumped into the water. “I’m cooling off!” Frank hollered. They had been drinking, so Wanda just stood there laughing. Then Frank started swimming. He swam out of sight, and Wanda stood there at the end of the pier waiting for him to swim back. Finally she started calling his name. She called him by his full name. “Frank Marshall!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Wanda is sure that Frank never meant to drown. They had been very happy at dinner that night. He had bought her brandy after dinner, which he never did, because it was too expensive to drink anything but beer in restaurants.

May thinks that is very sad. She remembers the last time she saw her father. It was when her mother took the caps off her father’s film containers and spit into them. He grabbed her mother’s arm and pushed her out of the room. “The great artist!” her mother hollered, and her father’s face went wild. He has a long, straight nose (May’s is snubbed, like her mother’s) and long, brown hair that he ties back with a rubber band when he rides his motorcycle. Her father is two years younger than her mother. They met in the park when he took a picture of her. He is a professional photographer.

May picks up the National Enquirer and begins to read an article about how Sophia Loren tried to save Richard Burton’s marriage. In a picture, Sophia holds Carlo Ponti’s hand and beams. Wanda subscribes to the National Enquirer. She cries over the stories about crippled children, and prays for them. She answers the ads offering little plants for a dollar. “I always get suckered in,” she says. “I know they just die.” She talks back to the articles and chastises Richard for ever leaving Liz, and Liz for ever having married Eddie, and Liz for running around with a used-car salesman, and all the doctors who think they have a cure for cancer.

After lunch, Wanda takes a nap and then a shower. Afterward, there is always bath powder all over the bathroom — even on the minor. Then she drinks two shots of tequila in lemonade, and then she fixes dinner. Mrs. Wong comes back from the library punctually at four o’clock. May looks at Wanda’s National Enquirer. She turns the page, and Paul Newman is swimming in water full of big chunks of ice.

Mrs. Wong’s first name is Maria. Her name is written neatly on her notebooks. “Imagine having a student living under my roof!” Wanda says. Wanda went to a junior college with May’s mother but dropped out after the first semester. Wanda and May’s mother have often talked about Mrs. Wong. From them May learned that Mrs. Wong married a Chinese man and then left him, and she has a fifteen-year-old son. On top of that, she is studying to be a social worker. “That ought to give her an opportunity to marry a Negro,” May’s mother said to Wanda. “The Chinese man wasn’t far out enough, I guess.”

Mrs. Wong is back early today. As she comes up the sidewalk, she gives May the peace sign. May gives the peace sign, too.

“Your mama didn’t write, I take it,” Mrs. Wong says.

May shrugs.

“I write my son, and my husband rips up the letters,” Mrs. Wong says. “At least when she does write you’ll get it.” Mrs. Wong sits down on the top step and takes off her sandals. She rubs her feet. “Get to the movies?” she asks.

“She always forgets.”

“Remind her,” Mrs. Wong says. “Honey, if you don’t practice by asserting yourself with women, you’ll never be able to assert yourself with men.”

May wishes that Mrs. Wong were her mother. It would be nice if she could keep her father and have Mrs. Wong for a mother. But all the women he likes are thin and blond and young. That’s one of the things her mother complains about. “Do you wish I strung beads?” her mother shouted at him once. May sometimes wishes that she could have been there when her parents first met. It was in the park, when her mother was riding a bicycle, and her father waved his arms for her to stop so he could take her picture. Her father has said that her mother was very beautiful that day — that he decided right then to marry her.

“How did you meet your husband?” May asks Mrs. Wong.”

“I met him in an elevator.”

“Did you go out with him for a long time before you got married?”

“For a year.”

“That’s a long time. My parents only went out together for two weeks.”

“Time doesn’t seem to be a factor,” Mrs. Wong says with a sigh. She examines a blister on her big toe.

“Wanda says I shouldn’t get married until I’m twenty-one.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I bet I’ll never get married. Nobody has ever asked me out.”

“They will,” Mrs. Wong says. “Or you can ask them.

“Honey,” Mrs. Wong says, “I wouldn’t ever have a date now if I didn’t ask them.” She puts her sandals back on.

Wanda opens the screen door. “Would you like to have dinner with us?” she says to Mrs. Wong. “I could put in some extra chicken.”

“Yes, I would. That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Marshall.”

“Chicken fricassee,” Wanda says, and closes the door.

The tablecloth in the kitchen is covered with crumbs and cigarette ashes. The cloth is plastic, patterned with golden roosters. In the center is a large plastic hen (salt) and a plastic egg (pepper). The tequila bottle is lined up with the salt and pepper shakers.

At dinner, May watches Wanda serving the chicken. Will she put the spoon in the dish? She is waving the spoon; she looks as if she is conducting. She drops the spoon on the table.

“Ladies first,” Wanda says.

Mrs. Wong takes over. She dishes up some chicken and hands the plate to May.

“Well,” Wanda says, “here you are happy to be gone from your husband, and here I am miserable because my husband is gone, and May’s mother is out chasing down her husband, who wants to run around the country taking pictures of hippies.”

Wanda accepts a plate of chicken. She picks up her fork and puts it in her chicken. “Did I tell you, Mrs. Wong, that my husband drowned?”

“Yes, you did,” Mrs. Wong says. “I’m very sorry.”

“What would a social worker say if some woman was unhappy because her husband drowned?”

“I really don’t know,” Mrs. Wong says.

“You might just say, ‘Buck up,’ or something.” Wanda takes a bite of the chicken. “Excuse me, Mrs. Wong,” she says with her mouth full. “I want you to enjoy your dinner.”

“It’s very good,” Mrs. Wong says. “Thank you for including me.”

“Hell,” Wanda says, “we’re all on the same sinking ship.”

“What are you thinking?” Wanda says to May when she is in bed. “You don’t talk much.”

“What do I think about what?”

“About your mother off after your father, and all. You don’t cry in here at night, do you?”

“No,” May says.

Wanda swirls the liquor in her glass. She gets up and goes to the window.

“Hello, coleus,” Wanda says. “Should I pinch you back?” She stares at the plant, picks up the glass from the windowsill, and returns to the bed.

“If you were sixteen, you could get a license,” Wanda says. “Then when your ma went after your father you could chase after the two of them. A regular caravan.”

Wanda lights another cigarette. “What do you know about your friend Mrs. Wong? She’s no more talkative than you, which isn’t saying much.”

“We just talk about things,” May says. “She’s rooting an avocado she’s going to give me. It’ll be a tree.”

“You talk about avocados? I thought that, being a social worker, she might do you some good.”

Wanda drops her match on the floor. “I wish if you had anything you wanted to talk about that you would,” she says.

“How come my mother hasn’t written? She’s been gone a week.”

Wanda shrugs. “Ask me something I can answer,” she says.

In the middle of the following week a letter comes. “Dear May,” it says, “I am hot as hell as I write this in a drugstore taking time out to have a Coke. Ray is nowhere to be found, so thank God you’ve still got me. I guess after another day of this I am going to cash it in and get back to you. Don’t feel bad about this. After all, I did all the driving. Ha! Love, Mama.”

Sitting on the porch after dinner, May rereads the letter. Her mother’s letters are always brief. Her mother has signed “Mama” in big, block-printed letters to fill up the bottom of the page.

Mrs. Wong comes out of the house, prepared for rain. She has on jeans and a yellow rain parka. She is going back to the library to study, she says. She sits on the top step, next to May.

“See?” Mrs. Wong says. “I told you she’d write. My husband would have ripped up the letter.”

“Can’t you call your son?” May asks.

“He got the number changed.”

“Couldn’t you go over there?”

“I suppose. It depresses me. Dirty magazines all over the house. His father brings them back for them. Hamburger meat and filth.”

“Do you have a picture of him?” May asks.

Mrs. Wong takes out her wallet and removes a photo in a plastic case. There is a picture of a Chinese man sitting on a boat. Next to him is a brown-haired boy, smiling. The Chinese man is also smiling. One of his eyes has been poked out of the picture.

“My husband used to jump rope in the kitchen,” Mrs. Wong says. “I’m not kidding you. He said it was to tone his muscles. I’d be cooking breakfast and he’d be jumping and panting. Reverting to infancy.”

May laughs.

“Wait till you get married,” Mrs. Wong says.

Wanda opens the door and closes it again. She has been avoiding Mrs. Wong since their last discussion, two days ago. When Mrs. Wong was leaving for class, Wanda stood in front of the door and said, “Why go to school? They don’t have answers. What’s the answer to why my husband drowned himself in the ocean after a good dinner? There aren’t any answers. That’s what I’ve got against woman’s liberation. Nothing personal.”

Wanda had been drinking. She held the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other.

“Why do you identify me with the women’s movement, Mrs. Marshall?” Mrs. Wong had asked.

“You left a perfectly good husband and son, didn’t you?”

“My husband stayed out all night, and my son didn’t care if I was there or not.”

“He didn’t care? What’s happening to men? They’re all turning queer, from the politicians down to the delivery boy. I was ashamed to have the delivery boy in my house today. What’s gone wrong?”

Wanda’s conversations usually end by her asking a question and then just walking away. That was something that always annoyed May’s father. Almost everything about Wanda annoyed him. May wishes she could like Wanda more, but she agrees with her father. Wanda is nice, but she isn’t very exciting.

Now Wanda comes out and sits on the porch. She picks up the National Enquirer. “Another doctor, another cure,” Wanda says, and she sighs.

May is not listening to Wanda. She is watching a black Cadillac with a white top coming up the street. The black Cadillac looks just like the one that belongs to her father’s friends Gus and Sugar. There is a woman in the passenger seat. The car comes by slowly, but then speeds up. May sits forward in her rocking chair to look. The woman did not look like Sugar. May sits back.

“Men on the moon, no cure for cancer,” Wanda says. “Men on the moon, and they do something to the ground beef now so it won’t cook. You saw me put that meat in the pan tonight. It just wouldn’t cook, would it?”

They rock in silence. In a few minutes, the car coasts by again. The window is down, and music is playing loudly. The car stops in front of Wanda’s. May’s father gets out It’s her father, in a pair of shorts. A camera bounces against his chest.

“What the hell is this?” Wanda hollers as May runs toward her father.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Wanda yells again.

May’s father is smiling. He has a beer can in one hand, but he hugs May to him, even though he can’t pick her up. Looking past his arm, May sees that the woman in the car is Sugar.

“You’re not taking her anywhere!” Wanda says. “You’ve got no right to put me in this position.”

“Aw, Wanda, you know the world always dumps on you,” Ray says. “You know I’ve got the right to put you in this position.”

“You’re drunk,” Wanda says. “What’s going on? Who’s that in the ear?”

“It’s awful, Wanda,” Ray says. “Here I am, and I’m drunk, and I’m taking May away.”

“Daddy — were you in Colorado?” May says. “Is that where you were?”

“Colorado? I don’t have the money to go West, sweetheart. I was out at Gus and Sugar’s beach place, except that Gus has split, and Sugar is here with me to pick you up.”

“She’s not going with you,” Wanda says. Wanda looks mean.

“Oh, Wanda, are we going to have a big fight? Am I going to have to grab her and run?”

He grabs May, and before Wanda can move they are at the car. The music is louder, the door is open, and May is in the car, crushing Sugar.

“Move over, Sugar,” Ray says. “Lock the door. Lock the door!”

Sugar slides over behind the wheel. The door slams shut, the windows are rolled up, and as Wanda gets to the car May’s father locks the door and makes a face at her.

“Poor Wanda!” he shouts through the glass. “Isn’t this awful, Wanda?”

“Let her out! Give her to me!” Wanda shouts.

“Wanda,” he says, “I’ll give you this.” He puckers his lips and blows a kiss, and Sugar, laughing, pulls away.

“Honey,” Ray says to May, turning down the radio, “I don’t know why I didn’t have this idea sooner. I’m really sorry. I was talking to Sugar tonight, and I realized, My God, I can just go and get her. There’s nothing Wanda can do.”

“What about Mom, though?” May says. “I got a letter, and she’s coming back from Colorado. She went to Denver.”

“She didn’t!”

“She did. She went looking for you.”

“But I’m here,” Ray says. “I’m right here with my Sugar and my May. Honey, we’ve made our own peanut butter, and we’re going to have peanut butter and apple butter, and a beer, too, if you want it, and go walking in the surf. We’ve got boots — you can have my boots — and at night we can walk through the surf.”

May looks at Sugar. Sugar’s face is set in a wide smile. Her hair is white. She has dyed her hair white. She is smiling.

Ray hugs May. “I want to know every single thing that’s happened,” he says.

“I’ve just been, I’ve just been sitting around Wanda’s.”

“I figured that’s where you were. At first I assumed you were with your mother, but I remembered the other time, and then it hit me that you had to be there. I told Sugar that — didn’t I, Sugar?”

Sugar nods. Her hair has blown across her face, almost obscuring her vision. The traffic light in front of them changes from yellow to red, and May falls back against her father as the car speeds up.

Sugar says that she wants to be called by her real name. Her name is Martha Joanna Leigh, but Martha is fine with her. Ray always calls her all three names, or else just Sugar. He loves to tease.

It’s a little scary at Sugar’s house. For one thing, the seabirds don’t always see that the front wall is glass, and sometimes a bird flies right into it. Sugar’s two cats creep around the house, and at night they jump onto May’s bed or get into fights. May has been here for three days. She and Ray and Sugar swim every day, and at night they play Scrabble or walk on the beach or take a drive. Sugar is a vegetarian. Everything she cooks is called “three”-some-thing. Tonight, they had three-bean loaf; the night before, they had mushrooms with three-green stuffing. Dinner is usually at ten o’clock, which is when May used to go to bed at Wanda’s.

Tonight, Ray is playing Gus’s zither. It sounds like the music they play in horror movies. Ray has taken a lot of photographs of Sugar, and they are tacked up all over the house — Sugar cooking, Sugar getting out of the shower, Sugar asleep, Sugar waving at the camera, Sugar angry about so many pictures being taken. “And if Gus comes back, loook out,” Ray says, strumming the zither.

“What if he does come back?” Sugar says.

“Listen to this,” Ray says. “I’ve written a song that’s about something I really feel. John Lennon couldn’t have been more honest. Listen, Sugar.”

“Martha,” Sugar says.

“Coors beer,” Ray sings, “there’s none here. You have to go West to drink the best — Coooors beeeer.”

May and Sugar laugh. May is holding a ball of yarn that Sugar is winding into smaller balls. One of the cats, which is going to have kittens, is licking its paws, with its head against the pillow Sugar is sitting on. Sugar has a box of rags in the kitchen closet. Every day she shows the box to the cat. She has to hold the cat’s head straight to make it look at the box. The cat has always had kittens on the rug in the bathroom.

“And tub-night Johnny’s guests are …” Ray is imitating Ed McMahon again. All day he has been announcing Johnny Carson, or talking about Johnny’s guests. “Ed McMahon,” he says, shaking his head. “Out there in Burbank, Califoria, Ed has probably got a refrigerator full of Coors beer, and I’ve got to make do with Schlitz.” Ray runs his fingers across the strings. “The hell with you, Ed. The hell with you.” Ray closes the window above his head. “Wasn’t there a talking horse named Ed?” He stretches out on the floor and crosses his feet, his arms behind his head. “What do you want to do?” he says.

“I’m fine,” Sugar says. “You bored?”

“Yeah. I want Gus to show up and create a little action.”

“He just might,” Sugar says.

“Old Gus never can get it together. He’s visiting his old mama way down in Macon, Georgia. He’ll just be a rockin’ and a talkin’ with his poor old mother, and he won’t be home for days and days.”

“You’re not making any sense, Ray.”

“I’m Ed McMahon,” Ray says, sitting up. “I’m standing out there with a mike in my hand, looking out on all those faces, and suddenly it looks like they’re sliding down on me. Help!” Ray jumps up and waves his arms. “And I say to myself, ‘Ed, what are you doing here, Ed?’”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Sugar says. “Do you want to take a walk?”

“I want to watch the damned Johnny Carson show. How come you don’t have a television?”

Sugar pats the last ball of wool, drops it into the knitting basket. She looks at May. “We didn’t have much for dinner. How about some cashew butter on toast, or some guacamole?”

“O.K.,” May says. Sugar is very nice to her. It would be nice to have Sugar for a mother.

“Fix me some of that stuff, too,” Ray says. He flips through a pile of records and picks one up, carefully removes it, his thumb in the center, another finger on the edge. He puts it on the record player and slowly lowers the needle to Rod Stewart, hoarsely singing “Mandolin Wind.” “The way he sings ‘No, no,’” Ray says, shaking his head.

In the kitchen, May takes a piece of toast out of the toaster, then takes out the other piece and puts it on her father’s plate. Sugar pours each of them a glass of cranberry juice.

“You just love me, don’t you, Sugar?” Ray says, and bites into his toast. “Because living with Gus is like living with a mummy-right?”

Sugar shrugs. She is smoking a cigarillo and drinking cranberry juice.

“I’m your Marvin Gardens,” Ray says. “I’m your God-damned Park Place.”

Sugar exhales, looks at some fixed point on the wall across from her.

“Oh, metaphor,” Ray says, and cups his hand, as though he can catch something. “Everything is like everything else. Ray is like Gus. Sugar’s getting tired of Ray.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Ray?” Sugar says.

“Your one cat is like your other cat,” Ray says. “All is one. Om, om.”

Sugar drains her glass. Sugar and Ray are both smiling. May smiles, to join them, but she doesn’t understand them.

Ray begins his James Taylor imitation. “Ev-ery-body, have you hoid, she’s gonna buy me a mockin’ boid …” he sings.

Ray used to sing to May’s mother. He called it serenading. He’d sit at the table, waiting for breakfast, singing and keeping the beat with his knife against the table. As May got older, she was a little embarrassed when she had friends over and Ray began serenading. Her father is very energetic; at home, he used to sprawl out on the floor to arm-wrestle with his friends. He told May that he had been a Marine. Later, her mother told her that that wasn’t true — he wasn’t even in the Army, because he had too many allergies.

“Let’s take a walk,” Ray says now, hitting the table so hard that the plates shake.

“Get your coat, May,” Sugar says. “We’re going for a walk.”

Sugar puts on a tan poncho with unicorns on the front and stars on the back. May’s clothes are at Wanda’s, so she wears Sugar’s raincoat, tied around her waist with a red Moroccan belt. “We look like we’re auditioning for Fellini,” Sugar says.

Ray opens the sliding door. The small patio is covered with sand. They walk down two steps to the beach. There’s a quarter-moon, and the water is dark. There is a wide expanse of sand between the house and the water. Ray skips down the beach, away from them, becoming a blur in the darkness.

“Your father’s in a bad mood because another publisher turned down his book of photographs,” Sugar says.

“Oh,” May says.

“That raincoat falling off you?” Sugar says, tugging on one shoulder. “You look like some Biblical figure.”

It’s windy. The wind blows the sand against May’s legs. She stops to rub some of it away.

“Ray?” Sugar calls. “Hey, Ray!”

“Where is he?” May asks.

“If he didn’t want to walk with us, I don’t know why he asked us to come,” Sugar says.

They are close to the water now. A light spray blows into May’s face.

“Ray!” Sugar calls down the beach.

“Boo!” Ray screams, in back of them. Sugar and May jump. May screams.

“I was crouching. Didn’t you see me?” Ray says.

“Very funny,” Sugar says.

Ray hoists May onto his shoulders. She doesn’t like being up there. He scared her.

“Your legs are as long as flagpoles,” Ray says to May. “How old are you now?”

“Twelve.”

“Twelve years old. I’ve been married to your mother for thirteen years.”

Some rocks appear in front of them. It is where the private beach ends and the public beach begins. In the daytime they often walk here and sit on the rocks. Ray takes pictures, and Sugar and May jump over the incoming waves or just sit looking at the water. They usually have a good time. Right now, riding on Ray’s shoulders, May wants to know how much longer they are going to stay at the beach house. Maybe her mother is already back. If Wanda told her mother about the Cadillac, her mother would know it was Sugar’s, wouldn’t she? Her mother used to say nasty things about Sugar and Gus. “College people,” her mother called them. Sugar teaches crafts at a high school; Gus is a piano teacher. At the beach house, Sugar has taught May how to play scales on Gus’s piano. It is a huge black piano that takes up almost a whole room. There is a picture on top of a Doberman, with a blue ribbon stuck to the side of the frame. Gus used to raise dogs. Three of them bit him in one month, and he quit.

“Race you back,” Ray says now, lowering May. But she is too tired to race. She and Sugar just keep walking when he runs off. They walk in silence most of the way back.

“Sugar,” May says, “do you know how long we’re going to be here?”

Sugar slows down. “I really don’t know. No. Are you worried that your mother might be back?”

“She ought to be back by now.”

Sugar’s hair looks like snow in the moonlight. “Go to bed when we get back and I’ll talk to him,” Sugar says.

When they get to the house, the light is on, so it’s easier to see where they’re walking. As Sugar pushes open the sliding door, May sees her father standing in front of Gus in the living room. Gus does not turn around when Sugar says, “Gus. Hello.”

Everyone looks at him. “I’m tired as hell,” Gus says. “Is there any beer?”

“I’ll get you some,” Sugar says. Almost in slow motion, she goes to the refrigerator.

Gus has been looking at Ray’s pictures of Sugar, and suddenly he snatches one off the wall. “On my wall?” Gus says. “Who did that? Who hung them up?”

“Ray,” Sugar says. She hands him the can of beer.

“Ray,” Gus repeats. He shakes his head. He shakes the beer in the can lightly but doesn’t drink it.

“May,” Sugar says, “why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for bed?”

“Go upstairs,” Gus says. Gus’s face is red, and he looks tired and wild.

May runs up the stairs and then sits down there and listens. No one is talking. Then she hears Gus say, “Do you intend to spend the night, Ray? Turn this into a little social occasion?”

“I would like to stay for a while to—” Ray begins.

Gus says something, but his voice is so low and angry that May can’t make out the words.

Silence again.

“Gus—” Ray begins again.

“What?” Gus shouts. “What have you got to say to me, Ray? You don’t have a damned thing to say to me. Will you get out of here now?”

Footsteps. May looks down and sees her father walk past the stairs. He does not look up. He did not see her. He has gone out the door, leaving her. In a minute she hears his motorcycle start and the noise the tires make riding through gravel. May runs downstairs to Sugar, who is picking up the pictures Gus has ripped off the walls.

“I’m going to take you home, May,” Sugar says.

“I’m coming with you,” Gus says. “If I let you go, you’ll go after Ray.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sugar says.

“I’m going with you,” Gus says.

“Let’s go, then,” Sugar says. May is the first one to the door.

Gus is barefoot. He stares at Sugar and walks as if he is drunk. He is still holding the can of beer.

Sugar gets into the driver’s seat of the Cadillac. The key is in the ignition. She starts the car and then puts her head against the wheel and begins to cry.

“Get moving, will you?” Gus says. “Or move over.” Gus gets out and walks around the car. “I knew you were going crazy when you dyed your hair,” Gus says. “Shove over, will you?”

Sugar moves over. May is in the back seat, in one corner.

“For God’s sake, stop crying,” Gus says. “What am I doing to you?”

Gus drives slowly, then very fast. The radio is on, in a faint mumble. For half an hour they ride in silence, except for the sounds of the radio and Sugar blowing her nose.

“Your father’s O.K.,” Sugar says at last. “He was just upset, you know.”

In the back seat, May nods, but Sugar does not see it.

At last the car slows, and May sits up and sees they are in the block where she lives. Ray’s motorcycle is not in the driveway. All the lights are out in the house.

“It’s empty,” Sugar says. “Or else she’s asleep in there. Do you want to knock on the door, May?”

“What do you mean, it’s empty?” Gus says.

“She’s in Colorado,” Sugar says. “I thought she might be back.”

May begins to cry. She tries to get out of the car, but she can’t work the door handle.

“Come on,” Gus says to her. “Come on, now. We can go back. I don’t believe this.”

May’s legs are still sandy, and they itch. She rubs them, crying.

“You can take her back to Wanda’s,” Sugar says. “Is that O.K., May?”

“Wanda? Who’s that?”

“Her mother’s friend. It’s not far from here. I’ll show you.”

“What am I even doing talking to you?” Gus says.

The radio drones. In another ten minutes they are at Wanda’s.

“I suppose nobody’s here, either,” Gus says, looking at the dark house. He leans back and opens the door for May, who runs up the walk. “Please be here, Wanda,” she whispers. She runs up to the door and knocks. No one answers. She knocks harder, and a light goes on in the hall. “Who is it?” Wanda calls.

“May,” May says.

“May!” Wanda hollers. She fumbles with the door. The door opens. May hears the tires as Gus pulls the car away. She stands there in Sugar’s raincoat, with the red belt hanging down the front.

“What did they do to you? What did they do?” Wanda says. Her eyes are swollen from sleep. Her hair has been clipped into rows of neat pin curls.

“You didn’t even try to find me,” May says.

“I called the house every hour!” Wanda says. “I called the police, and they wouldn’t do anything — he was your father. I did too try to find you. Look, there’s a letter from your mother. Tell me if you’re all right. Your father is crazy. He’ll never get you again after this, I know that. Are you all right, May? Talk to me.” Wanda turns on the hall lamp. “Are you all right? You saw how he got you in the car. What could I do? The police told me there was nothing else I could do. Do you want your mother’s letter? What have you got on?”

May takes the letter from Wanda and turns her back. She opens the envelope and reads: “Dear May, A last letter before I drive home. I looked up some friends of your father’s here, and they asked me to stay for a couple of days to unwind, so here I am. At first I thought he might be in the closet — jump out at me for a joke! Tell Wanda that I’ve lost five pounds. Sweated it away, I guess. I’ve been thinking, honey, and when I come home I want us to get a dog. I think you should have a dog. There are some that hardly shed at all, and maybe some that just plain don’t. It would be good to get a medium-size dog — maybe a terrier, or something like that. I meant to get you a dog years ago, but now I’ve been thinking that I should still do it. When I get back, first thing we’ll go and get you a dog. Love, Mama.”

It is the longest letter May has ever gotten from her mother. She stands in Wanda’s hallway, amazed.