Gone 'Til November

NINE

Sara was in the kitchen, drying the last of the dishes from dinner, when her cell trilled on the counter. She looked at the display. Billy’s number.

It was a little after eleven, Danny asleep, JoBeth home. After leaving Tiger’s, Sara had driven aimlessly, until the crying stopped, not wanting JoBeth to see her like that. She felt tired, drained.

The phone trilled again. She wiped her hands on a dish towel, picked it up. Thought about pushing the SILENCE button, setting it back down, ignoring it.

She hit SEND.

“Hey, Sara. I’m glad I got you.”

She leaned back against the counter, closed her eyes.

“Sara? Are you there?”

“I’m here. What is it?”

“I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“It’s Lee-Anne. Sometimes she’s just… I don’t know.”

Something flared inside her. When she’d seen them in the truck, she’d felt only shame. Now came anger.

“Billy, I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“I embarrassed you, and I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“I’m trying to apologize, Sara. Can you let me do that? Just this once?”

There was something in his tone, almost a pleading, and she felt herself soften. She shifted the phone to her other hand.

“I don’t know what to say, Billy. I don’t know what you want me to say either.”

Silence on the line.

“Billy?”

“I used to be able to make you laugh,” he said. “I loved that sound.”

“Billy, please-”

“I’m sorry it all ended up like this.”

She felt the sadness then, moving like slow fatigue through her body. You are not going to cry. Not now.

“I’m sorry too,” she said.

“I’m getting you upset again. I didn’t mean to.”

“Billy, I’ve got too much going on in my life right now to deal with this. To deal with you. We make our choices, and we live with them. I’m living with mine. Why can’t you do the same?”

“I’m trying,” he said. Something seemed to break in his voice. “I’m trying my best, Sara.”

“It’s late. I have to go.”

“I’m sorry for everything,” he said.

“Good night, Billy,” she said, but he was already gone.

At 2:00 A.M., she was still awake. She looked at the red numbers on the nightstand clock, pushed the covers aside. The central air was on, but it was still warm. She lay in the darkness, thought about Billy, remembered his hands on her.

You ended it. It was your choice. And it was the right one.

For months after she’d found out about Angie, she’d kept her distance from him. He’d made promises, pleaded with her, cried on the phone, but her humiliation had been too fresh, the hurt too deep. She’d see him at the SO or Tiger’s, but always with others around. Later on, when her anger had come to seem pointless, irrelevant, there had been long nights when she’d wished he would call. He never had. Then Lee-Anne had come along.

She rolled onto her side, pulled the other pillow closer. It was cool against her skin. You have to get up in four hours. You need to sleep.

She closed her eyes, trying to will herself to sleep, knowing it was no use. Realized then she was damp. Her hand crept down to the waistband of her sweatpants, tugged at the drawstring. Her nipples were already hard, pushing against the thin T-shirt.

When the sweatpants were loose, she slid her hand in, found her wetness. She imagined Billy standing in the darkness, a silhouette against the window, then turning to her, coming closer. She could almost feel him there in the dark, smell his skin, hear the creak of the bed as he lay down, reached for her.

Then she heard Lee-Anne’s laugh. Saw her face through the truck window, remembered the way she’d felt then.

She took her hand away, feeling foolish and alone.

She lay there for a while, the moment gone. Then she got out of bed, tightened the drawstring, went to the window, looked through the blinds. The Blazer sat alone in the driveway vapor light. Dew glistened on its hood. In the distance she could hear a freight train.

Four hours.

She got down on the floor, did slow push-ups, breathing in and out with each one. Her arms tightened, ached, but she kept her rhythm, not speeding up or slowing down. Watching the carpet rise toward her, then pushing it away.

When she reached twenty-five, she stopped, her arms locked straight, sweat on her forehead. She held that for a moment, then slumped onto her back, sucking in air. After a few seconds, she rolled to her feet, lightheaded, her breathing deep and steady. She crawled back into bed, pulled the pillow toward her, held it tight. Almost at once, she felt herself drifting. She went with it, let sleep take her.

Sara pulled the cruiser into the lot of the Starlite, saw the woman through the coffee shop window. She sat alone, most of the tables around her empty.

Eleven in the morning and the temperature already in the eighties. Sara shut the engine off, wondered what she was doing, why she’d driven out here.

When she went into the coffee shop, Shirley Osteen greeted her from behind the register.

“Hi, Sara. Anywhere you like.”

Simone James was in a booth halfway down, her back to the door. Sara started toward her, aware of the noise she was making, the creak of leather, the static-y hum of the radio.

The woman didn’t turn. She had a cup of tea in front of her, a plate with the remains of breakfast. Beside it was a folded copy of the Sunbeam, the county’s weekly paper, and a cell phone.

“Miss James?”

The woman looked up at her. She was younger up close, her skin the color of lightly creamed coffee. Her hair was straight, pulled back with a green jade barrette that matched her eyes. She wore a sleeveless blue blouse, and on her right shoulder was a dark tattoo of two Greek letters. Sara didn’t know what they meant.

“May I sit?”

The woman watched her for a moment, then nodded. Sara slid into the booth across from her.

Under the blouse, Simone James wore a diamond-studded heart on a thin gold chain. It was simple, yet beautiful. Sara didn’t envy it, knew it would look out of place on her even if she could afford it, but on this woman it looked like it belonged, had always been there, always would.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sara said.

The woman met her eyes. Sara felt awkward, her confidence slipping.

“Miss James-” she began.

“Why are you here?”

“I was passing by, saw you. My name is Deputy-”

“I know who you are.”

Sara sat back. “Good,” she said. “Then you know-”

“I know all about you. You and the man that killed Derek. I know you were there.”

“I wasn’t,” Sara said. “Not when it happened.” Then regretted it, the words feeling like a betrayal.

The woman slid the paper across to her.

“This just came out,” she said. “You read that story in there?”

Sara shook her head. She had the paper delivered, but more often than not it went into the recycling unread.

“It says Derek was a ‘suspected drug dealer.’ Why would they say that?”

“Miss James-”

“Because he was black?”

“There were weapons in the car.”

“But no drugs. So what makes him a suspected drug dealer?”

“Newspapers print what they want.”

“No. Town like this, newspapers print what you police tell them. Am I right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Sara thought about getting up, leaving, but that would be a concession, a sign of weakness.

Simone James took a leather wallet from the seat alongside her, unsnapped it. She slipped a snapshot from a plastic sleeve, set it on the table between them. Derek Willis wearing a yellow T-shirt and an easy smile, holding a toddler against his chest, the child twisting to look at the camera. Trees in the background, people in shorts and T-shirts. Some sort of picnic.

“Go ahead. Pick it up, look at it.”

“I can see it.”

“Derek never hurt anyone in his life. He never carried a gun in his life, either. We met at college. Rutgers. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“I graduated last year. Derek had a year to go for his degree. He wasn’t no corner boy. There was no reason for you to shoot him down like that.”

“Those weren’t schoolbooks in that car.”

“You don’t listen, do you? Whatever was in that car, it wasn’t his. Derek didn’t have anything to do with guns. He was different from those boys he grew up with. He had a future.”

Sara looked at the photo. The little boy’s eyes. Derek Willis, young and alive, love for the child in his arms lighting up his face. She saw the gold ring in his right ear, the same ring she’d seen by the beam of the flashlight.

“I’m sorry,” she said and meant it.

“He was a good man, and you people killed him like some animal.”

Sara shifted in her seat. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Derek was twenty-two years old. Our baby is three now. Who’s going to tell him what happened to his father? How am I ever going to explain that to him?”

“Where is he? Your son.”

She replaced the photo in the wallet. “With my parents. I couldn’t bring him down here. Not with what I have to do.” Her voice almost broke then, lost some of its edge. “They won’t give Derek back to me until they’re done with him,” she said. “With their ‘investigation.’ He’s all alone down here. You people murdered him, then cut him up, put him on a slab somewhere. Now I can’t take him home until they say I can.”

There was wetness in her eyes. Sara looked away, out at the parking lot, the heat haze rising off the blacktop.

“I have a little boy, too,” she said. “He’s six.”

“He have a daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Where at?”

“I don’t know. We’re on our own.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m not sure,” Sara said. “I guess I just wanted you to know.”

“Is he coming back? His daddy?”

“Maybe someday. I don’t know.”

“But he might. He might show up at your door tomorrow, to see you, see his son.”

“He might.”

“Derek won’t. He told me he’d be gone a week, maybe a little longer, but he’s not ever coming back.”

The cell phone hummed on the table.

“I’m sorry I bothered you.” Sara said and eased out of the booth. “And I’m sorry for what happened.”

The phone hummed again.

“You may not be now,” Simone James said, “but you will be.”

“What’s that mean?”

The woman looked at her, waiting, and Sara knew she was being dismissed. Her face felt hot.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your husband,” she said. “That’s all I came out here to tell you.”

Sara held her eyes for a moment, then turned away, headed for the door. She nodded at Shirley, not trusting herself to speak, then pushed open the door and went out into the heat.