Love Stories in This Town. Amanda Eyre Ward

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СКАЧАТЬ was in the yard, under a sign that said MARGARITAVILLE!

      “I hate it,” I said.

      “Oh,” he said, “okay.” We moved toward the minivan.

      · · ·

      As we drove to another house, Joe chatted with himself. “Silly flooring choices,” he said, and “tiles from the wrong period.” He turned on Treasure Cove Drive and stopped in front of a faux Victorian. “Right,” he said, running a hand through his hair. He told us the price of the house, which was one hundred thousand more dollars than we could afford, even with the handcuffs.

      I looked back at Greg, who shrugged. He was wearing a light blue shirt I had sewn for him—it was the color of his eyes. He had a fresh haircut, and looked weary but optimistic.

      My brother, Adam, a devotee of HGTV, would have loved the house on Treasure Cove. It was solid brick—so unlike the house we had grown up in, which shook during Georgia thunderstorms—and had a media room with a wet bar and a giant deck for entertaining.

      I was feeling woozy and dreamy. In a stranger’s bathroom, I changed my Maxi Pad. The bathroom had a Jacuzzi tub. I wrapped the old pad in toilet paper and stuck it in my pocket. My blood—which had cushioned the mass of cells—dripped into the toilet bowl. In the tub, someone had lit berry-scented candles. I began to feel ill. I took a few breaths, then composed myself and joined my husband, who was admiring the skylight above the bed. A stitched pillow proclaimed THE STARS ARE BRIGHT IN TEXAS. It was a mass-produced piece of junk. Perhaps no one had the time to hand-stitch in Houston. Perhaps no one had a motto worth hand-stitching. THE HOUSES ARE BIG IN TEXAS, I thought. THE HAIR IS BLOND IN TEXAS. WHAT AM I DOING IN TEXAS?

      In the minivan, I said I was too tired to trek around anymore. “Sweetie,” said Greg, “we only have this weekend….”

      “How about a Diet Dr Pepper?” suggested Joe. “Got a twelve-pack in the cooler.”

      My empty womb was starting to cramp. “I just don’t feel so well,” I said. “I’m on antibiotics.”

      Joe smoothly put the car in gear. He talked about strep throat, how he always used to get strep throat as a kid, always taking antibiotics.

      “Let’s hit a few more houses,” said my husband. “Kimmy, you rest in the car. I’ll let you know if anything’s amazing.” The doctor had suggested we cancel the trip, but I had already covered my shifts, and I wanted so much to fly somewhere new, somewhere else, and buy a home. Our apartment was grimy, despite the curtains I had made from vintage fabric. The previous tenants had left old pots and pans; there was even a towel in the bathroom that said RANDY.

      “You’ll be completely wiped out after the procedure,” the doctor had said, as I lay on a gurney, an IV in my arm. I was given an anti-nauseal called Regulan.

      “I feel a bit weird already,” I said.

      “Hm,” said the doctor, leaning in. I was her first operation of the day: I could smell the hair dryer and Aqua Net. “Do you feel anxious, jittery, like you want to jump off the table?”

      “I do.”

      “It’s the Regulan,” said the doctor, matter-of-factly. But I was also about to go into surgery, to have what was left of my baby scraped out. We had prematurely named the baby Madeline or Greg Junior.

      “You’ll be in la la land in a sec anyway,” said the doctor.

      She was right. The next thing I knew, a nurse said, “It’s all over. Now don’t forget Doc’s instructions.”

      She pulled back a white curtain, and there was Greg, his eyes red. “Mouse,” he said, and he tried to smile.

      The nurse continued, “Dr. O’Brien told you the surgery was fine, and you asked when you could have a margarita.”

      “What did she say?” Greg and I asked in unison.

      “She said Sunday.”

      It was Friday night when Joe dropped us at the Hilton Garden Inn, but we ordered margaritas anyway at the Great American Grill. The espadrilles I had bought for the trip were already giving me blisters. We were depressed.

      “I can’t imagine myself in any of these McMansions,” I said, poking an ice cube with my straw.

      “I’m not hungry, but I’m getting fried chicken,” said Greg.

      “I miss it,” I said. Greg slid his chair next to mine and took me in his arms.

      “I know,” he said. “Me too.”

      Three nights before, I had climbed into bed and said, “I have a little blood in my underwear.”

      “What?”

      “But I looked on the Internet. Something about old blood, sometimes, like making room for the growing uterus or something. I don’t know.” I felt a sick excitement, speculating that I’d get some extra attention and maybe see the baby on an early sonogram, paid for by Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

      “It’s probably nothing,” Greg had said, putting one hand on my stomach and the other on his fruitfly genome data.

      After two rounds of margaritas, we went to our hotel room. Greg took a shower and joined me in bed, smelling of the hotel’s ginger citrus shampoo. When he fell asleep, I was alone in a humid city.

      I was six when a man approached my mother near the perfume counter at Dillard’s. Once in a while, she took us shopping in Atlanta, about an hour from our hometown of Haralson, Georgia, population 143. The man asked my mother if she’d ever thought of being a model. She laughed in a way I had never heard, showing her throat. She said she was happily married with two small children. The man told my mother they had nannies in Paris, who were called au pairs.

      In my memory, the man had dark hair and shiny skin. He wore a suit and tie. He handed her a card and said, “Just promise me you’ll think about it.” My mother was a rare beauty, he said.

      She looked at the card, her forehead creased. She said, “I’ll think about it. Okay, I will, I’ll think about it.” She bought a shirt for my brother and a plaid jumper for me, and then she drove us home.

      She was beautiful, my mother. She’d rest her long, bare arms on her knees and stare into space while I tried to capture her attention. She didn’t cook, like other mothers, or put name tags in my clothes. I can imagine her hanging my new dress in my closet, mulling her options. Did she even hesitate? Lighting a cigarette, dialing the number, packing her suitcase.

      I don’t know if she made it to Paris, or became famous there. Whatever she found, I hope it brought her happiness. I hope it was better than my brother and me.

      At ten the next morning, I climbed into the front seat of Joe’s mother-in-law’s minivan. Greg was in the back, next to the cooler. We drove south, heading into a neighborhood I loved immediately. There was a big park with a swimming pool, and a jungle gym surrounded by moms holding take-out coffees.

      “Okeydokey,” said Joe, looking through a messy pile of papers, each a possible place for us to live. “Okay, now,” he said, “we’re a few blocks from the Ginger Man, a good СКАЧАТЬ