Triple Exposure Page 12

  “Thanks for the welcome but if we’re princesses, you’re the prince. You’ve been living off the royal hospitality longer than I have,” Natalie shot back, her affectionate tone softening the words.

  His half-smile remained. “I moved out, cupcake, or hadn’t you heard?” Nattie punched him lightly on the shoulder and retorted, “Well, congratulations on your coming of age.”

  “It was lonesome without your caustic comments.”

  Her sister Nancy’s two kids skidded into the room, then turned and ran out in full shriek. From another room Nancy’s raised voice reached Nicky’s ears. “You want to run, go outside.”

  Jerry’s reply, “Aw, let them have fun,” reminded Nicky that she had never heard Nancy’s husband support her in even the most reasonable requests.

  “You heard your mother. You want to run or roughhouse, you go outside. You’re in Grandma’s house now.”

  “Grandma Cleo knows how to handle Jerry,” Natalie said under her breath.

  Neil added, “Yeah, she ignores him.”

  Nicky imagined the meaningful look her mother probably threw in Jerry’s direction.

  “Maybe we should just take them home, Nancy,” Jerry suggested. He never challenged Nancy’s parents. He talked around them.

  “You go ahead. I’m staying,” Nancy replied, and Nicky felt like cheering.

  She lifted her thumb in silent approval and Natalie muttered, “He’s such an asshole.”

  “For once we agree on something,” Neil said.

  Their father entered the kitchen, effectively ending further remarks about their brother-in-law. “Smells good, doesn’t it?” he boomed, hugging his daughters. “Your mother never lets me forget this day. I think she just uses my birthday as an excuse to get you kids home.”

  Her mother had fixed ideas about holidays. She considered her husband’s birthday a time when wife and children should gather round him with gifts and good wishes—perhaps to get him through the prospect of being another year older. Nicky couldn’t fault her. The thought of turning forty alarmed her.

  When they gathered for dinner, Jerry sat at the far end of the table with Nancy and the kids at his side. Her father presided over the proceedings from the other end.

  “Grandpa, did they shoot the turkey?” Jordan asked, his dark hair hanging in his eyes.

  “Don’t talk about it,” Jody said. She took aim at her brother with her fork.

  “I don’t really know, Jordan, but your sister’s right. It’s not a good topic for dinner-table conversation. Pick another.” Her father sliced the turkey into edible portions and heaped it onto plates which were passed around the table.

  “Maybe they ran over him with a car like that cat we saw coming here.” Jordan stared at his plate, distaste curling his lip.

  “Yuck,” his sister said. “I’m not hungry. Mama, make him shut up.”

  Jerry took his son’s plate away and said, “Just sit there and watch us eat then and try to be quiet for a change.”

  The boy burst into tears.

  Her mother said in a calm, authoritative voice, “Give him back his plate, Jerry. I’m not going to have anything spoil this day. If he doesn’t want to eat the turkey, he doesn’t have to.”

  Watching this tableau, Nicky couldn’t help thinking that the day was already well on its way toward ruin. A typical family get-together, she thought. “When is your mother going to bring you and Jody out to ride Tater?” she asked the boy, attempting to change the subject.

  Jordan forgot his tears as his father put his plate, minus the turkey leg, back in front of him. “Can we go, Mama?”

  “Can we, Mama?” Jody echoed.

  Nancy shot a grateful look toward Nicky. “Sure. Eat your food now.”

  “How’s the horse business?” her father asked Nicky.

  “Well, I suppose Mom told you we’re down to Tater.” She explained the situation.

  Later, after the cake was eaten and the presents opened, Nicky and Natalie left. Darkness had fallen, a brisk, bright night shown by a harvest moon and a sky filled with stars. Nicky was thinking of Meg, who would soon leave for the Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus, Ohio. She had planned to show Brittle there, the largest breed horse show in the world, and instead was going in search of him. Denise was furious, and Nicky thought it was a futile move—because why would he be there if no Quarter Horse buyer would take him without papers?

  Natalie broke into her thoughts. “I’ve been offered a job at Lakeview Country Club. It’s a step up.”

  “You’re not through with your classes yet, are you?”

  “No, but I can quit the restaurant and work at the country club part-time. I don’t think I want to get married.”

  Nicky shot her a quick look but Nattie’s expression was hidden by shadows. “Did he ask?”

  “No, but why do people get married anyway? To have children so that somebody’ll be there for days like today? Look at the four of us. Would you want to have us for your kids?”

  “What’s the matter with us? We didn’t turn out so badly.”

  “We just go home because we think we should. You and I are about as close as any of us get, and we were thrown together by them.”

  Feeling vaguely insulted, Nicky retorted, “It’s nice to know that Mom and Dad are there. They should have had us closer together, is all. Then we might have found more in common.”

  “Maybe, and sure it’s nice to know that Mom and Dad are always good for a loan.”

  “Natalie, I never ask for money from them.” But she knew the financial safety net was under her. “And they support you.”

  “And through me, you.”

  Thoroughly annoyed, Nicky said, “Let’s just drop it. Okay?”

  In bed that night, she thought about how she struggled to keep herself independent of her parents. She was close to the end of her financial rope, though. The mowing was over, Brittle still gone, the horse photography on hold until the show season began again. When the unemployment checks stopped, Tater’s rent and her parents’ offerings for Natalie’s room and board wouldn’t be enough.

  Panic gripped her, and she tossed sleeplessly. To put herself to sleep she often thought about making love with Beth. Their noon meetings on Wednesdays had become a weekly affair. But now she became embroiled in an argument with herself over their continuation. She had considered forcing Beth to make changes by refusing to see her unless she did. It had been Meg’s idea.

  ***

  “Don’t invent any more stories just to see me,” she said to Beth, who called her early Wednesday morning from the health club.

  “I’ll just tell the secretaries I’m going to meet you at your place for lunch. Mark’ll be breathing my exhaust,” Beth said. “Don’t you want to see me?”

  “I want to see you more than Wednesdays at noon and an occasional hour when Matt rides. I want to be able to call you when I need to talk. I’d like to go to a movie or a play once in a while or for a Sunday walk. It would be nice to have you over for dinner sometimes.” Her heart thudded against her ribs, making her breathless.

  Beth ended a long pause. “This is an ultimatum.”

  “Call it what you want. I’ve waited and waited.”

  “So you have, and I’m sorry. Maybe it’s best not to see each other for a while. I’ll call you, Nicky.” The receiver clicked quietly in her ear.

  “What’s up?” Natalie asked, having just clambered down the stairs.

  “Nothing.” She stared at the phone as if it had betrayed her, hoping it might yet change its mind.

  “You look sort of ghastly. You sure you’re all right?”

  Nicky nodded.

  “Was it Beth?” Nattie shook Nicky’s shoulder and looked into her face.

  “I’m okay, Nattie.” She made eye contact to reassure her sister. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

  “There’s frost on the ground. Take a warm jacket.”

  She made footprints in the white covering, exposing grass limp an
d still green. By habit she had slung her camera over her shoulder, and she snapped Tater as he trotted toward her, his whiskers frosty. She took another picture of him shaking his lowered head at Scrappy, who briefly stood his ground barking. She filmed the swiftly flowing stream, cutting its dark, liquid path through whitened banks.

  Her spirits lifted a little. She wasn’t so beaten that she put her camera down. Now that Photoplay was supplying her with film and developing service in exchange for one day of work a week, she felt free to take as many pictures as she wanted.

  She forgot all difficulties when she was using her camera, just as she did when she made love. Maybe she would never make love with Beth again. Her chest hurt as if something were stepping on it, flattening her heart, stomping the breath out of her lungs. She captured Scrappy and Tater drinking out of the creek. Scrappy had finally figured Tater’s bluff. Tater took a step toward the dog and snorted, and Scrappy continued drinking even as a low, warning growl rumbled in his throat.

  Nicky laughed and continued photographing them. It would make a great series, she thought. Then she straightened and looked out across the frosted grass toward the pale blue horizon. Winter was on its way—nights alone, holidays with the family, long, confining, cold days.

  She went into the Fox Cities that morning and asked for a full-time job at Photoplay. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She didn’t even care how much they paid for her services. “I know what I’m doing here, and what I don’t know I’m well on my way to learning.”

  “We can pay seven an hour to start, but we may not be able to use you forty hours a week.” The man in charge, Phil Jacobs, had dark stains on his fingers. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, the tie pulled loose.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Just put me to work.”

  She worked next to a heavy woman named Doreen Dombrowski who answered all her questions in knowledgeable detail, always supplying her with more information than she had asked.

  “Want to go out after work for a drink?” Doreen asked at five o’clock. “I thought that thing was going to attach itself permanently to my ass,” she said of the stool she spent each day sitting on.

  “They’re not exactly molded for comfort,” Nicky agreed. She decided to take the time for a beer, not wanting to put off Doreen on her first day.

  Doreen took her to a downtown bar. “Have you ever been here?”

  Nicky hadn’t. She looked around at all the trash hanging from the ceiling—ornaments from every conceivable holiday, along with plastic grapes and vines covered with dust. It gave her a closed in feeling. “Nope. What do you want? I’ll buy.”

  A former high school science teacher, Doreen lived alone, divorced without children. She had a lively intelligence and shared stored-up trivia with anyone who would listen.

  “What’s your interest at Photoplay? Just a job?”

  “I’m an amateur camera buff.” Nicky asked her if she knew Margo, told her about her own work.

  “I know Margo and that’s why your name sounded familiar. I can’t believe this. You’re Nicole Hennessey? Your work is wonderful.”

  Up till now Nicky had felt a little restrained and standoffish. Now she puffed up at the praise and found herself liking Doreen. She had to laugh at herself, taken in by flattery.

  “But why are you at Photoplay? You should be free-lancing.”

  “I have to eat too, and pay the mortgage.”

  Meg returned from the Quarter Horse Congress on the last Saturday in October. Except for some oaks clinging to brown, rattling leaves, the deciduous trees were bare. Snow had already fallen once, a two-inch accumulation. She came to the farm before going home to Denise and let herself in after pounding on the door. “Anybody home?”

  “Me,” Nicky said, delighted to see her. Meg’s cheeks were bright red, her gray eyes watery from the stinging wind.

  Hugging her, Meg said, “You should have been there. I won’t even try to tell you what it’s like. The Congress is an experience, a microcosm. Got anything warm to drink?”

  “Hot chocolate.” Nicky put two cups of water to heat in the microwave.

  That was when Meg told her she hadn’t been home yet. “I want to ask you a favor. I’m going to leave Denise. When I do, I’ll need a place to stay until I find my own. Would you put me up? I’ll pay rent.”

  Nicky wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. Wind shook the window panes. She was caught by surprise. “You’re leaving Denise?”

  Meg sat down at the table and put her hands around the cup of hot chocolate Nicky placed before her. “I’ve had lots of time to mull this over. I want out. I think I’ve wanted out for a long time. That’s probably why I seduced you.”

  “Thanks,” Nicky remarked dryly. “What was I? An experiment?”

  “I’m crazy about you, Nicky. You’re fun, you’re kind, you’re gifted. I could go on and on, but I don’t want you to swell up and burst.”

  “And what’s Denise going to say about your leaving? She’ll blame me.”

  “Probably.” Their eyes met in mutual assessment. “What will Beth say?”

  “I did what you suggested and Beth said we should take a break from each other.”

  “Oh, Nicky, I’m sorry.”

  Feeling unexpected tears welling, she turned away. “It doesn’t matter. I never had her anyway, just bits and pieces.”

  “Maybe that’s the way to do it. It gives you some freedom. Sometimes being with someone is like having an albatross around your neck.”

  “How are you going to do this?” Nicky sat down and warmed her hands with the hot chocolate.

  “I’ll go home tomorrow. I’ll sleep wherever you put me tonight. Denise doesn’t know I’m back yet. This week I’ll tell her I’m leaving. Next weekend I’ll pack.”

  “That easy, huh?” Nicky smiled, just glad to be talking to her.

  “No, I doubt if it’ll be easy.”

  ***

  Off and on during the next three days Nicky thought about Meg, wondering if she’d muster the guts to leave Denise and what would happen if she did.

  Tuesday after work Meg was waiting for Nicky in the kitchen. “It was too cold to wait outside. I didn’t plan to come here, but I need some courage. I’m going to tell Denise tonight.”

  “Want something to eat?” Nicky always came home from work ravenous.

  “I feel like I’m going to puke.”

  “Well, maybe you’re not ready to tell her yet.” Agreeing that Meg should leave Denise, Nicky decided to keep that opinion to herself. “You know you’ve got a bed here whenever you need it.”

  Meg left, white-faced and anxious, determined to make the break. Nicky understood. She herself was nervous about Denise’s reaction, that she would be the target of her anger.

  The next night she received an angry call from Denise. “Is this how you treat a friend, by taking her lover away?”

  “Wait a minute,” Nicky said. “I’m not taking anyone away. Let’s get things straight here.”

  “She’s not leaving me. You got that? No one’s breaking up our relationship, especially not you.” The receiver slammed in her ear.

  When Friday arrived and Nicky had neither seen nor heard from Meg since Tuesday, she was uneasy for her. Doreen asked her out for a drink, and she went gladly. She liked talking photography with someone who knew something about it. She and Doreen discussed shadows and angles, focusing and light, background and centering, and what made an interesting shot.

  But when she drove in the driveway, the barn lot was cluttered with vehicles. Dan’s truck was there, Meg’s Rabbit, Denise’s Toyota, and now her own truck. Natalie, she knew, was at work. Dan was standing between Denise and Meg. Nicky could hear their raised voices before she turned off the engine. She cringed at the confrontation.

  “Now wait a minute,” Dan was saying. “Just calm down.”

  “I’ll fucking calm down when I feel like it,” Denise shouted. “She’s ta
ken seven goddamn years of my life. I want them back.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Meg said, throwing her hands up. “Don’t do this here. Please.”

  Nicky stood on the fringes. She saw Meg’s exasperation, Denise’s rage, Dan’s attempts to mollify them.

  Denise gestured at Nicky, while shouting at Meg. “You been fucking her? Is that it? Is that why you want to move out? Be honest.”

  “Shut up, Denise. Just shut your disgusting mouth.” Meg turned a pleading look on Nicky and Dan, as if to beg their understanding.

  “Oh, so now I’m disgusting, am I?” She struggled to get past Dan at Meg, but he held her back with one large hand.

  “Why don’t we just cool down here and go inside and talk,” he suggested.

  “I’m leaving, that’s why. I’ll put your things out with the garbage Monday.” Denise started toward her car.

  “I’m going to get my things now.” Meg opened the door of the Rabbit and turned to Nicky and Dan. “I’ll be back later. I just want to get my clothes and show stuff. I am so sorry.”

  “You want me to come with you?” Nicky asked.

  “Why don’t you let her calm down first,” Dan said.

  “Because she isn’t going to calm down. I’ll call the police if I have to. It’s better if I go alone.” Meg followed Denise out of the driveway.

  But she didn’t return that night. She called around midnight, shortly after Nicky had fallen asleep. “I thought I was going to get the machine,” she whispered.

  “I can barely hear you.”

  “I don’t want to wake Denise. But I didn’t want you to worry, Nicky. I can’t leave her alone tonight. I’m afraid of what she might do to herself.”

  “So you’re not going to leave her?”

  “Not tonight anyway. I can’t apologize enough about what happened at your place today. Please tell Dan I’m sorry he got dragged into it, will you? I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait,” Nicky said as Meg hung up. She had wanted to tell her to at least call tomorrow to let her know if she was all right.