Paradox

By Terry L. White

Rae Ann had hopes for a nice, normal life until she saw Skip barrel out from behind that little country store in Paradox in the wake of an armed robbery.

Her vow to make a better life for herself generates suspicion in a town where girls who have not married by the time they are twenty are surely destined to be old maids.

Skip keeps coming back like a bad penny, but Rae Ann has other plans. She’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: May 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781613860991

Book preview

Paradox

by

by Terry L. White

Published by Write Words Inc. at Smashwords

copyright 2013 Terry L. White

Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Author or Publisher, excepting brief quotes to be used in reviews.

WARNING: Making copies or distributing this file, either on disk, CD, or over the Internet is a Federal Offense under the U.S. Copyright Act, and a violation of several International Trade Agreements.

Dedication

To Sandy V. Saunders and Missy LeCompte:

Greater love hath no woman...

Men work together, whether they work together or apart...

— Robert Frost

Chapter 1

This is a story about paradox, not where I live, although that is the name of the little community I stayed in all my life, but also what happens when you try to ignore everyone else’s claim that their way is the only way there is.

There were some bossy people in my life who messed up my story pretty good, but I got them straightened out after a while. The thing is, you have to listen to your own heart and not to what others have to say about whatever it is you are wrestling with.

You can do anything if you set your mind to it. I know because I got the life I wanted, and if I can do it, anybody can.

I realize now that much of the drama in my life came from the females I knew who turned every conversation to their own small experience. For instance, my mom, who thought she was as sweet as sugar but caused a commotion over the wrong brand of toilet tissue every time. My high school friends always worked to look model perfect, even if everyone knew they were really borderline anorexic and that they ran for the bathroom to throw up after every decent meal.

I have worked with women who believe they are much better and smarter and more successful than any other individuals of their personal acquaintance, but their houses have never been cleaned. You can’t, as the saying goes, judge a book by the cover.

It all boils down to this: a paradox is never what it seems and some people just need drama in their lives.

I wish you could meet my sister Emma Grace. Those old photos of my little sister with her fairy-blonde hair and starched white dress are about as much a paradox as I have ever seen. In reality she is a devil and she didn’t come near turning out like that sweet little angel in the photo on Ma’s dresser. I just hope I turn out better than that, but God isn’t done with me yet so I don’t know for sure.

I want to say Emma Grace has been dying of one thing or another for the past twenty-some years—ever since she was born with the jaundice, but despite her protests she is as healthy as a horse. She told me with great sincerity that she was dying in 1997, so I always did find it kind of difficult to believe she’s really going to actually do it now. She looked like walking death back then, but I know she didn’t die on me that time. The last time she thought about trying to die I think she felt kind of cheated by the robbery over to Hop Bailey’s Market because on that day she was upstaged by an honest-to-goodness armed robbery and murder in our peaceful little mountain town.

Let me tell you how it all happened.

The day started much like any other with me listening to Emma Grace whine about her sad, hard life. Like I said, my sister enjoys poor health—often. I remember once Emma Grace decided she had inoperable cancer, but nothing ever came of it for all her weeping and wailing. She is still hanging around making my life miserable.

Emma Grace says her bowels are causing the problem, but she never found a doctor to agree with her, and the colonoscopy came out clean, so I don’t know what the real problem is. Maybe it is her shitty outlook on life, which might explain the portion of paradox she dished out in my direction all the time we were coming up.

I remember when we were kids and she would do terrible, awful, horrible, naughty things and when it came time for someone to pay the piper for the permanent black ink on Ma’s prized Battenburg lace tablecloth, Emma Grace put on her little angel face and I got whacked on the behind for being the oldest. I should have known better.

I want to know. Do I look like a paradox to you? I was the good girl, but I was plain as an old rusty bucket—which is pretty much always trumped by a sisterly angel face. Not really.

A paradox, you see, is something that looks like one thing and turns out to be a whole other sack of potatoes. With me, you pretty well get what you see every time.

Anyway, the day of the robbery Emma Grace announced she had a stomach complaint and was passing gas all over the place. Every time she cut the cheese it sounded like Ma’s old aluminum percolator. She didn’t bother to excuse herself because how could she, a perfect angel, ever make such a gross social error? But she did mention she could use some Pepto if I happened to be going down to the store if I didn’t mind—which I did.

Emma Grace has always been one of those Southern belle types, the ones they called steel magnolias in that Dolly Parton movie. They lie about on their chaise lounges (read hide-a-bed) and sigh over what might have been for want of anything better to do, and while they are often very pretty they enjoy poor digestion and being a martyr in every phase of their lives…. And they love to dish out advice like it was the common cold. Emma Grace is one of those people who wear out everyone around them and then wonder why the heck they are all alone in the world. You want to steer clear of people like that if you can. Especially if they never have any money for the things they want you to pick up at the store when you are the only one in the family trying to do right and to pay her way in life.

See an invalid? Right away, think paradox.

How Emma Grace ended up staying in the frozen North is beyond me. She always said she wanted to live in someplace that was warm in the winter, but I don’t think she’ll ever get out of Paradox. I don’t believe she has the imagination for being a globetrotter in the first place. I know she had at least one offer to get married and go to Florida; but she says she turned the guy down, because he had terrible breath. She has loudly regretted it ever since, and time has graciously erased the memory of the once-loved and oft-grieved light of love’s transgressions until he remains perfect in her memory forever after.

This is what really happened. Emma Grace screwed around and got pregnant and all, but her beau Billy Ray Sooks took off with a girl he met at the launderette and was never heard from again. Emma Grace was waitressing days over to the bowling alley on weekends at the time, and she had high hopes for a big white wedding and total retirement in a double-wide in the park right next to Ma’s. When she heard about Billy Ray and how he run off, Emma Grace took to her couch and settled in for a good long spell of mourning since she wasn’t going to get to be a stay-at-home mom after all.

A week or so later her period came on, and Emma Grace made me wait on her hand and foot and cried for damned near a month over losing the baby that never was. Then she announced she lost more than twelve pounds from her grief and all. Frankly I couldn’t see the difference. She looked like the same old size a hundred and plenty to me.

Emma Grace asked me to come by the other day to see if I could help her pick out a new kitchen table set. I went over even though I knew she wouldn’t pay the slightest attention to anything I had to say. What she really wanted was to let me know that she had enough left out of her monthly check raise to get some new kitchen furniture.

She had one of those old secondhand chrome sets with four red mother-of-toilet-seat plastic upholstered chairs—one of which collapsed under her while she was enjoying her morning coffee that day. I guess she was expecting company because she was dressed for a change, although I don’t think anyone ever came to call on her but me and the cute brown man from UPS once in a blue moon when crazy Aunt Melanie sent us her signature tie-died t-shirts and new-age meditation cassettes.

Now there is a woman. I don’t believe she has a paradoxical bone in her whole body. What you see is what you get, even if it does seem weird. Pity no one wants to have anything much to do with Aunt Mel because she is so liberal. I like her a lot, but I guess that’s why she stays away.

Anyway, I just happened to be there when that chair came apart. My sister was chair-dancing to this country two-step on the radio when I heard the tiniest little metallic ping when the last piece of solder gave up the ghost under Emma Grace’s considerable bulk. I watched as my sister slowly descended to the floor, which was well sanded with old sugar, salt and ashes from the icy paths that led from the trailer to the road that ran around the innards of the trailer park, and cinnamon raisin bagel crumbs.

Son of a bitch, she snarled from her prone position and resumed her rant against this girl we both knew named Marion Lacy. (Which is a whole other paradox, but I’m not going to go into it right now.)

I was on my day off from the job I partially inherited from my sister at the bowling alley except I work Monday through Saturday nights, and was sitting on the bench seat by the jalousie window paging through an old Sears flyer when it happened. It was chilly beside the window, even with the plastic on it inside, but I had on my long underwear and this old red sweater coat, so I didn’t really mind that too much. Trailers are never really all that warm in the wintertime anyhow, so you dress for the season.

Those pictures of the ski slopes in upstate New York are just another example of a paradox. Yeah, the ski slopes are quaint and picturesque with all those little skiers zipping down the trails and tow chairs and stuff, but the reality is that they can ski up here like eight months of the year. This part of the world has some of the longest winters on earth this side of the Arctic Circle. If you ask me, pretty is as pretty does.

I want to tell you the look on Emma Grace’s face was priceless when she found herself on the floor. I had all I could do not to bust out in belly laughs, but I knew better than to laugh at my sister when she made an ass of herself so I just held my breath and waited until she got up by herself. She was pretty mad and I guess she would have killed me if I had made so much as a peep, so the only sound you could hear was the tick of sleet against the window. For some reason even the radio cut out.

I tell you that Marion Lacy is just common! my sister grunted as she scrambled to get her legs under her. Emma Grace never missed a lick when it came to gossip and dis-ing her friends even if she had to make something up, and she didn’t miss any that day neither. I hear she took up with some guy with a Yamaha motor-sickle and she got herself a tattoo! she snapped, kicked the wounded chair, and resumed her usual angel baby expression.

I thought of the dainty rose I had tattooed just below the beltline on my back and tried to look properly sympathetic as my sister hoisted herself up by putting one hand on the counter. She grabbed the handle of the ice box with her other hand and never missed a syllable in her complaints about her former best friend.

Some folks think a tattoo is nothing special these days, I began but she didn’t give me a chance to finish. A lot of girls have tat….

And I bet she comes up with hepatitis or some other nasty disease from those dirty needles, Emma Grace had a voice like a chain saw running in the back yard. Her whine rose and fell with the level of her excitement. I saw her the other day and she has part of her hair bleached all yellow, and the rest is black as….

I thought you and Marion were friends, I blew out a fog of smoke and pushed the spare chair out for her. She looked a little like a squashed jelly donut with all those crumbs and sugar and coffee drips all over her bleach-splashed Adirondack Red Wings sweatshirt. I had all I could do not to laugh.

Emma Grace grimaced. Marion makes me so sick. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Marion Lacy ain’t nothing but a nasty skank. She stopped to regain her butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression.

That’s a fine way to talk about a person who was your best friend all through grade and high school. I lit another cigarette and studied my fingernails through the smoky haze. My cup was about empty but I didn’t plan to hang around until Emma Grace made some more of the horrible off-brand instant stuff she got from the salvage store. Do you think I should get false nails for the holidays? I asked in a vague bid to change the subject.

What for? Emma Grace glanced at her own ragged cuticles as if she had just had her own claws done. Are you trying to impress someone or somethin’? You get new nails, they’ll only come off at work. Her eyes narrowed in a piggy squint. I bet you’ve got a new boyfriend! she squealed with delight. Oh boy! Linney got beau at last!

I didn’t say that, I snapped. Some people get off on minding the next person’s business and my sister was one. That angel shit is all an act and she will not hesitate to change her attitude when it might do her any real good. I let Emma Grace know that if I had a new boyfriend, which I did not, it was my business and none of hers.

Get real. I slid out from behind the table and fished my boots out of the plastic boot tray by the door. The ice in the treads had melted since I got there and they dripped steadily on my sister’s filthy kitchen floor. My sister put on her wronged angel face and scowled at me just as if she was Martha Stewart living in the land of perpetual clean.

Hey! It was winter in upstate New York and everything gets slushy toward the middle of March. As beautiful as the mountains are up here, they have their moments of paradox as well. I tried to respect Emma Grace’s space, but the boots dripped anyway. I gotta get going, I put my coffee-stained mug in her sink where it sank in a burble of cold, greasy water. See ya later.

Why would you want false nails? she shouted and slammed the door when I didn’t answer. I just kept going and hoped I didn’t take a fall on her path. Emma Grace never half shoveled, so when things started to melt, navigating from her stoop to the lane that wound through the trailer park was a treacherous undertaking. I don’t think there is anything slipperier than water on ice so I was being extra careful not to fall. My sister hollered after me to get her Pepto, which I eventually did, but not that day.

Frankly, I was glad to get out into the cold, clear air, even with the sleet that was coming down sideways and the fact it was so greasy underfoot. I don’t normally like winter, but the air always smells cleaner when there is white stuff on the ground and the perfume of wood smoke lingers in the air.

I mushed on over to Ma’s place to see what she wanted for lunch.

Ma was down with one of her all-winter colds and her lipstick was on crooked. It was easy to see where Emma Grace got it. Those two were like two peas in a pod.

Can you go down to Bailey’s market and pick me up a half gallon of milk and some chicken soup mix? she rasped and choked from her colorful nest of hand-crocheted afghans on the day bed beside the woodstove. The place reeked of chest rub and menthol cigarettes. The windows were sealed with plastic inside and out. No chill winter breeze would dare enter Ma’s winter domain.

You sound good. I opened the stove and shoved in a couple of wedges of red oak. The fire had burned down to coals. It was a good thing I got there when I did. Left to her own devices Ma would have let the fire go out, because in her mind, the trailer was still being heated with the oil furnace that it came with; but oil got too dear a few years back and Pa had put in the wood burner which kept the house warmer anyhow.

Ma was gearing up to complain that no one ever thought about her welfare enough to stop in and feed her wood stove even though I was right there doing that very thing. You just go on about your business, she said and made the long face that stabbed guilt into the hearts of every relative around. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. I can manage. Sigh.

After all that, Ma wanted to know how Emma Grace was. She never inquires as to my well-being, even if I am sick as a dog. I guess she could see I was fine. I was there, wasn’t I?

I’m okay too, Ma, I said in a snide voice, but she didn’t pick up on it. Emma Grace was her baby doll, the important one in the family. Neither one of them ever failed to remind me of that little fact. What else do you need to the store? I asked and waited for Ma to find her purse and maybe offer to pay for her groceries just this once.

Lissen, Ma said horsely, her voice a souvenir of fifty years of cheap tobacco smoke and bar room nights. I’m a little short. Dang gov’mint don’t know half what we need. I was hoping you could see your way clear to pick up a few things for me. You know I’m not up to walking way down there in the cold, and Joe needed the car to get to his card game up to the VFW and….

"Yeah Ma, I know. You wonder if I can spot you the groceries until your check comes