Chapter 4

I stayed away from Brenda for almost a month, honoring her request for me not to go see her. I was seeing Dr. Fleming on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she was telling me that I should concentrate on working through my own problems. She didn't come right out and say it, but I thought, almost from the beginning, that she wanted me to stop seeing Brenda.

I was in her office, telling her about how concerned I was becoming because Brenda hadn't called me. I had already explained what had gone on in Brenda's apartment.

"Gainey, with the history the two of you have had together, I think continued contact will only lead to more problems. You feed each others insecurities. It would be more productive for you to attempt to come to terms with your own difficulties, rather than try to heal each other the way you envision."

I had come to Dr. Fleming, primarily, to seek help for Brenda. Somehow, I had allowed myself to be sidetracked from this purpose. I realized that I had my own problems, and that I wasn't coping that well with them. Unlike Dr. Fleming, I believed that most of my problems would only be resolved when Brenda's had been resolved as well. I had tried to get Brenda to come in and talk with Dr. Fleming, but she had steadfastly refused to do so. It was a long round trip for me to be making, not to mention the expense of the sessions themselves, just so she could repeatedly tell me what I didn't want to hear, and to recommend what I wasn't going to do.

"I think today is our final session Dr. Fleming. I'm not prepared to travel the path that you've recommended. I came here seeking help and advice for Brenda. I am primarily interested in addressing her problems, not mine."

"That is your decision to make, of course. I feel I must tell you that my professional opinion is that you are putting your life at risk by continuing to pursue the approach you have chosen. She is very angry, and, at times, has demonstrated extreme hostility towards you. You have shown a consistent history of being willing to accept whichever hostile suggestions you are given by her. I fear that this situation will lead to a needless tragedy."

After the session, I thanked her and told her that I would carefully consider her advice. I did consider it, but, even recognizing that what she told me was true, acting on her advice would be counter productive to my primary goal and purpose. Brenda had stated it clearly and simply. I had broken her, and she needed me to fix her. She wasn't open to any other options. I had briefly considered the possibility that Dr. Fleming could work with me, to make me stronger, and better adjusted, but I had a strong feeling that Brenda and I needed to forge a connection that could possibly heal the both of us.

After a month, it became obvious that Brenda sure wasn't in any hurry to see me again. I wrote her a letter.

Dear Brenda,

I have quit seeing Dr. Fleming. Like you, I feel I am broken too. I'm not sure if I can ever be fixed, but if I can be, it will only be because you have been fixed first. You said that it was me who needed to fix you. Well, I am willing to do everything in my power to try. I have waited for you to call me, but your call never comes. I have stayed away, as you requested, but I am simply treading water, waiting for you to tell me if I should swim to you, or just go ahead and drown. Please let me hear from you.

Gainey

I mailed the letter that day. When I still didn't hear from her, after more than a week had gone by since mailing the letter, I called Ernie. I told him that Brenda had promised to phone me over five weeks before, but I still hadn't heard anything from her.

"I guess she doesn't want to talk to you then. Can you blame her?"

"No, I'm not blaming her, but I am worried about her. She said she'd call me."

"That's what girls say when they're trying to get rid of a pest."

I hung up the phone. Maybe Ernie was right. A case could be made that I was being a pest. I tried to think back to all of the meetings and phone calls we'd had. No, up until I sent that letter, I hadn't been a pest. I'd gone over to her apartment, uninvited, a few times, but I always left when she said for me to. She had gotten in touch with me as often as I'd gotten in touch with her. If I kept on the way I was heading though, I was moving in the direction of becoming a pest. I called Ernie back, and told him to tell Brenda that I'd leave her alone from now on.

It was another week before she called me again. It was a dreary day outside. There was rain, and it was cold as well. It was a Saturday, and I was putting off doing all of the chores I kept meaning to do, but never seemed to get around to. I either had to buy some new clothes or else wash the ones I did have. My kitchen had dishes and pans stacked up on all of the counter space, and mold was growing on some of the plates I hadn't scraped that well. I was pretty sure my mother had only owned four sets of sheets for her bed. Three of them were laying in a dirty pile on the bedroom floor, and the fourth was on my bed, but needed changing pretty badly. It was after eleven in the morning, and I was laying on the couch thinking about which chore I should begin with. I was also out of food, and my last sliver of bath soap had dissolved beneath my arm pit two days before.

She was drunk when she called, a little incoherent in fact. She started off by calling me a bunch of bad names. I had to ask her to repeat a few of them because I didn't understand what she meant. After five minutes, she started rambling about how I always left it up to her to call me.

"Give me your phone number and I'll call you."

"No. I don't want you to call me."

"Didn't you get my letter?"

"I didn't read it, I just threw it away."

"Did Ernie tell you that I called him?"

"He said you said you wouldn't bother me anymore. Is that all you called to tell him?"

"The second time I called. But, that was only after he said I was being a pest by trying to get back in touch with you."

"Come get me. I want to go for a ride."

"I wish I could, but I've been having trouble lately keeping up with all of my chores. I need to go shopping and pick up some things before I'm able to come see you."

"What kind of things?"

"Cleaning supplies, groceries, stuff like that. I've been none too tidy for the past six weeks or so."

"Living like a pig you mean?"

"I wouldn't say that, but I am a little bit behind in taking care of some things."

"You better be here in half an hour. I want to go for a ride." She hung up. I went in and took a shower, using my Head and Shoulders shampoo instead of soap. I shaved about a six day growth of hair off of my face, and wished I'd had a haircut sometime in the past few weeks. I found clean skivvies, and a fairly clean sock that I'd only worn for one day about a week or so before. Even hurrying, it was thirty minutes after she hung up that I made it out to my car. When it is wet out, my footing becomes far less certain. I almost slipped walking over to my car. I drove over to Bolling, but I took it carefully, so that took me another thirty minutes to get there. I parked, but even before I could get out of my car, Brenda came running out of her apartment and had opened the rear passenger door of my car. She was dressed in jeans and a shirt, with a warm looking boys zippered jacket. She was wearing some kind of boots too.

"I waited for an hour for you. Take me to Ridgeline. I want to see my mom, and my nephews."

She didn't seem as drunk looking as she had sounded on the phone. I drove her over to her mom's house. I tried several times to talk with her, but she either ignored me or told me to shut up. She was more hostile than she'd been before. I decided to say nothing more. When we got there, she told me to go home and she'd call me when she was ready to go back home. I watched her walking towards the front door and then I put my car in gear and drove back home. I stopped on the way and went shopping. I wasn't too sure about what supplies I had at home, so I got a lot of things I probably didn't need along with some stuff I knew I needed. I spent fifteen minutes hauling bags in from my car after I got back home. I brought everything into the kitchen, and put it on the table and chairs, after I'd first stacked things together to create some more room to put the bags. I decided I'd need to start my cleaning in the kitchen, but after I'd decided that, I went over and sat on my couch to rest for awhile. It was about two o'clock when I sat down, and I woke up at eight thirty, only because someone was banging on my front door.

I went to the front window and looked outside. It was Brenda, and she looked soaked. Her hair was all wet and had bunched up like wet hair does. I opened up the door for her, and stepped away from the door.

"I'm not coming in there. Let's go, I'm freezing."

I went back and sat back down on my sofa. The door was open and she stood in my doorway looking at me. All of the warm air in the house was leaking back outside, into the cold and rainy night.

"Gainey, let's go!" I ignored her. "I'm not coming in there so you can rape me again. Hurry up, I need to be at work by ten."

I got up and put on my coat. I made sure to lock my door after I closed it. I walked slowly and carefully and got into my car. Brenda was already in the back seat by the time I got there.

"You want to go straight to work, or do you need to go home and change first."

"Home, I'm not really working tonight. I just said that so you'd get up off of that couch."

I turned the ignition key to off and opened my car door. I carefully stepped back out of my car and went back inside my house. This time, I shut my door and locked it. Ten minutes passed before Brenda was banging on my door and screaming at me. I got up and opened my door. I listened to her for a few minutes, until she started repeating herself, and then I went back and sat down again. She tried yelling at me from the doorway, but after awhile she decided to come inside and to close the door.

"Gainey, I really do want to go back home. I expect you to take me."

"Call your Uncle Ernie, he'll take you home. I don't like being treated mean just for the hell of it. Call him, you can use my phone that's over there. Tell him I'll pay him the fifteen dollars for your fare."

"I can't call him. When I left the house, he was already out drinking with Tommy. He quits driving on Saturdays at six o'clock."

"Call that guy over in Holton then. Ask him how much it would cost."

"I'm not calling anyone. Give me your car keys, I'll drive myself. You can get your car tomorrow if you have Ernie drive you over."

"You couldn't drive my car. It has different placement for the gas and brake pedals so I can drive it with my left foot. It took me a long time to learn how to use it the right way. Maybe you should go back to your mother's house."

"I don't want to go there. Take me home. You've really let this house go, Gainey. Your mom wouldn't like to see how you've let it slide. When was the last time you dusted or vacuumed in here?" She moved away from the front door and started peeking into the dining room and the kitchen. I heard her suck in her breath when she got her first peek into the kitchen. It hadn't looked quite so bad before I'd stacked things to make room for all my cleaning supplies. "What's in all those bags, not groceries?" She had moved over to the hallway, and was looking through the open doorway of my new bedroom, my old room, and the bathroom in the hallway. "You live like a pig. Your mother would never let you get away with living like this."

"All right, Brenda, when you're through snooping around, I'll give you a ride home. It will be easier than answering all your questions. Just for your information, those bags have all of my new cleaning supplies. I was going to give this house a real Spic and Span cleaning, from floor to ceiling, before you called this morning, and interrupted all my plans."

"You should hire somebody that knows what they're doing. Once you have it all cleaned, someone could come in once a week, for half a day, and keep it nice for you. It doesn't cost that much. I did cleaning before I went to work at the warehouse. A house this size would only cost you about ten or twelve dollars a week for someone to clean it. The first time would be about fifty dollars though."

Does that include laundry too, or just the cleaning?"

"Just cleaning. For laundry, you need a regular maid, and they usually charge more and come in a couple times a week."

"What about cooking? How much for someone to cook and clean and do all my laundry?"

"Forty dollars a week plus room and board, but you don't need a full time live in maid."

"It might be worth that much if it was the right person. It would leave me a lot more time to chauffeur you around and keep up with my studies. Come on, are you ready to leave?"

She stopped trying to peek into my bedroom and walked to my front door. As soon as she saw that I was standing again, she walked over and got into the back seat of the car. I got back in and started the car up again. It was starting to sleet a little bit and I started worrying about the extra weight on my windshield wipers. It was quiet on the ride back, right up until we got to her apartment complex. She surprised me then.

"Come inside for a minute. There's something I want you to do for me." Before I even answered her, or told her that I would come in, she bounced out of my car, and ran to open her door. I got out and picked my way carefully to her doorway. She had the door opened for me when I got there, and she pointed for me to go sit down on her sofa again. I sat down. I sure wished she had a more comfortable sofa, one where the cushions weren't so low to the ground. Her sofa was hard for me to sit down on, and harder to get up from. I looked over at her, waiting to see what she wanted from me. I was reasonably sure it wasn't more sex.

"Gainey, I want you to hire me to clean your house tomorrow. I'll do it for fifty dollars. You can come pick me up in the morning and drive me home when I'm done. I do have to work tomorrow night, but I could use some extra money for Christmas presents. Tommy went and got fired from McCutchean's again, and Linda said there isn't any spare money to buy Christmas things for her boys."

"I don't want you cleaning my house, Brenda. I'll give you the money, or lend it to you if you'd rather. I told you that you can have anything of mine you want, anytime. I've really let the house go, but only because I've been in a little funk ever since that last time I was here. I guess I felt bad because you didn't call me. I'm capable of cleaning up for myself, if I feel like it."

"I told you I'm not a whore, Gainey. If I work for the money, that's one thing. Fifty dollars is what I'd charge anyone else, no more or less. That's a fair deal. The rides back and forth, that's just part of your obligation to me."

"Are there special rules for me? Do I have to leave the house while you clean it?"

"Can't you take in a movie or something? I work better alone. I don't want you underfoot."

"How much to do my laundry too? I can't work that washer and dryer right, and I've let some stuff get piled up. If you do the cleaning and the laundry, and show me how to work the washer and dryer, I'll pay you one hundred dollars. If you show me the washer and dryer secrets first, I'll leave right after, and you can have all the time alone you need, until about six o'clock so you have time to go back home and change for work. I'll drive you to work too as part of the whole deal."

"A hundred is too much. I'll do it for seventy five dollars. Do you have any food in that refrigerator?"

"I've got some pickle relish, and some catsup and mustard. I think there's some eggs left, but they might have hatched by now. That's about all. I don't eat at home that often, and that's usually hot dogs or canned soup. I ran out of soup, and my last two hot dogs got stuck in the ice in my freezer section. I was going to use an ice pick to get them out right before you called me."

"We'll need to get some food then. Do you like spaghetti? I make a good spaghetti and meatballs. It's my mom's recipe."

"Is it better than Campbell Soup's spaghetti? That's the one I'd compare it to. That's one of my favorites."

"Be here early, because it's going to take me all day. Can you be here by seven?"

"I'll be here."

"Did you have anymore of those dreams about me?"

"No. I guess they've stopped for awhile."

"I had one about you and me. In my dream we did it for a long time, and I didn't mind that you were hugging me the whole time we did it. When I woke up, I felt all funny, and I had been touching myself. I've never had a dream like that before. In my dream, it was nice, and I didn't feel bad afterwards."

"That sounds like a good dream. Do you think we'll ever make it come true?"

"I think it was just a dream. You better go home, if you're going to come back here by seven."

I drove back home carefully. With the rain and sleet, you couldn't see very far ahead. I almost ran off the road once when a big truck came barreling down the road. I thought for a minute he didn't see me. When I got home, I spent two hours trying to straighten things out a little bit. I washed and scraped the worst of the gunk off of the plates and some of the pots and pans. I almost threw all of it away, but I thought that would look too strange.

After I had the worst of the scum cleaned up from the kitchen, I went into my bedroom and vacuumed the rug and dusted the furniture in there. I separated all of my laundry, and took all of my underwear into the laundry room. I managed to figure out how to turn on the washer. I put in some of my newly purchased laundry powder and started it up on the highest setting. When it didn't overflow with soapsuds, I left it to do its job, and went to bed. I set the alarm for five thirty, knowing that I wanted to put my underwear in the dryer and all the sheets in the wash machine before heading over to pick up Brenda.

I managed to get everything done, and was parked in front of Brenda's apartment by six forty five the following morning. I waited until seven, and when Brenda still hadn't come out, I went and knocked on her door. She came to her door, but didn't open it.

"I'm sorry, Gainey, but I don't think I can handle this today. I thought I could, and that's why I didn't call you."

"Do you want to do something else instead? How about if we go shopping, and you make me some spaghetti? I've been wondering if yours is really better than Campbell's."

"No, I'm just going to stay in today."

"You were right about me living like a pig, Brenda. Do you know anybody else that might help me get it cleaned up in there? You think Linda might want to do it to earn some extra money?"

"Tommy's Linda? She doesn't even clean their house. My mother does all the cleaning. If it was up to her, that house would look like yours by now. Besides, if Tommy found out about it, you'd be right back in the hospital."

"Why did he get fired?"

"Same old thing. He got drunk after work and told a few of the bosses what he thought of them. They'll take him back in a couple of months like they always do. He's one of their best mechanics. He just has a mean mouth when he's drunk."

"I don't mind that much about the house, but I feel bad about you not having the money to make a good Christmas for your nephews. Would it be easier if you knew I wasn't going to be there at all? I'd pay Ernie to give you a ride home if that makes it easier for you."

"I just can't make myself leave the apartment right now. I get like this sometimes, but it goes away. I guess it was too stressful thinking about being alone in that house with you. I'm sure I'll be fine by tonight. I'm sorry I made you drive all the way over here for nothing."

"That's okay. You take care of yourself. Call me if you need anything, or if you just want to talk. One more thing, just because I think you better know it, I think I'm in love with you."

I turned to leave, and had walked almost all the way to my car when I heard her door open behind me. I turned and looked at her. She looked upset rather than mad. I think that she had been caught off guard by me declaring my love for her. I didn't have the right to say that to her, not with our past history, but I wanted her to know there was something more than plain guilt that was at work in the mix that I had brewing. I had started thinking about it, and wondering ever since I stopped my appointments with Dr. Fleming. I really did feel the guilt and the desire to make things right with her, but somehow, in the middle of all of that, I had started developing some normal feelings for her too. I turned back and went around to my car door. I was pulling my leg inside when I saw Brenda with a jacket in hand, running to my car. She had jumped in the back before I had myself turned facing the front and ready to close my door.

"I decided that I really need that money too much to sit at home today. It wasn't because of that other thing you said, which I don't believe anyway. It was thinking about Tommy's kids, and their Christmas this year, and knowing that the extra money would help them. I still don't want you around the house while I'm cleaning it."

"What about the spaghetti? If you give me a list of what you need, I'll run to the market and get it for you, you can look over my cleaning stuff and see if you need anything else while I'm gone. When I get back with the spaghetti ingredients, you can give me a list of any other cleaning supplies you need."

"I don't know what I'll need for my spaghetti until after I check on what you already have. You must have more than you said before. Spices and seasonings, canned tomatoes and tomato paste."

"I had some cans of stewed tomatoes, but I already ate them. I think there was tomato paste too, but I ran out of peanut butter, and needed something to spread on my bread."

"Tomato paste and bread?"

"I heated it up first. It was actually pretty good. I'm glad you reminded me, I'll pick up some extra cans. One little can can make about fifteen sandwiches, and that stuff keeps in the refrigerator for a long time. I bet it would be even better with Italian bread."

How about we stop off at the market and I'll pick up what we need? Do you at least have Parmesan cheese?"

"I think I have some garlic powder, will that do?"

"Garlic powder instead of Parmesan cheese? Gainey, didn't your mother teach you anything?"

"I've cooked for myself lots of times. I'm just better with simple meals, nothing as elaborate as spaghetti. Sometimes, my soups taste just like my mother used to make."

"She made canned soup too?"

"That's right, and we both followed the same directions on the side of the can. The only difference is that I add the salt and pepper before I warm it up. That way, when I'm stirring it, it gets mixed in more evenly. I learned that on my own too."

"Why did you say that to me, back at the apartment before?"

"About loving you?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure. I didn't mean to say it like that, you know when you were hiding behind a door. I guess I didn't want you thinking I'm hanging around you just because I want you to punish me. I do want that, but there's more too. I guess I'm hoping that when you get all finished with that, we can see if we want to do more stuff together."

"Like start dating again? That isn't likely to happen. If ever someone blew a date, Gainey, that someone is you."

"I know that. That's almost like I think of it too. Not a blown date, but an opportunity that I messed up so totally and completely that I can't even understand how I could have done it. We were getting along so well before that night."

"That isn't how it was, Gainey. We both said we thought each date was going to be our last one. I don't want to think about that night right now. Let's stop talking. Give me some money for the spaghetti, and the other things." I gave her a twenty dollar bill, passing it behind me without taking my eyes off of the road. I felt her hand touching mine just before she took the bill out of my hands. She hadn't needed to touch me. She did it because she wanted to. When I parked at the market, she told me to stay in my car. She got out and was gone for about fifteen minutes. I saw her come out with a bag in each arm, so I got out of the car and opened the back seat door for her. I moved quickly away before she got too close to me. I was back in the front seat pretty fast, but by then, she had the groceries on the floor, and she was sitting there, her arms folded, and her door shut.