I don’t see eye to eye on lots of things.
“I think I know what you mean,” he says with this strange look on his face, but before I can ask him to explain, he says, “I bet you had to fight off the guys in high school.”
I just laughed and thought fast so he wouldn’t even suspect that the only real date I ever had was fatso Gus Franklin who played trumpet in the band and got me drunk on tequila one night and made me lose my virginity in his daddy’s pickup.
“Oh, no more than any other gal,” I said with another laugh.
By now I was getting kind of nervous, so when Vernon rubbed his full stomach, and said he was taking me up on the rain check for a nightcap at his place, and peeled off a few bills from his wad of cash, I was more relieved than anything else.
Much as Vernon likes to play the big spender when we go out—and, Lord, does he love restaurants—I don’t think he’s rolling in clover. But, from the looks of his ranch house, I wouldn’t say he’s exactly scraping the bottom of the barrel either. Nice, big living room with gnarled pine floors. A hooked rug with the head of a buffalo in the middle. Maroon leather sofa and chairs. A shiny saddle fixed on a railing and lots of horns all over one wall. About what you’d expect of a boy from Waco, I guess.
Something else I also caught sight of was a framed picture of a woman on the wooden beam mantelpiece over the fire-place. “Mona?” I asked.
“Yeah,” was all Vernon said.
Just a head shot, so I couldn’t get much idea what the gal actually looked like. Pretty face, though. Short light hair, small eyes, real smooth skin. Only thing is she did look a little puffy to me.
“’Bout two fingers?” Vernon asks with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a short glass in the other.
I hold up just my index finger and laugh, but when he keeps pouring I have to yell, “Whoooa, bud!”
Then he puts on a CD of country music—Toby Keith—and we play with Daisy for a while, and the next thing I know we’re sort of tussling with each other and he’s pulled me down on him on that leather sofa that smells so good and is kissing me to beat the band on my mouth and neck and chest and everywhere. Well, one thing led to another, and we end up in his king-size bed with a wrought-iron headboard in the shape of a big cactus, and all I gotta say is that nobody but nobody could ever say Vernon’s not a wild woman’s type of guy. For a minute I was scared to death he’d ask me about the scar underneath my navel where they did the surgery, but, to tell the truth, the man was so wrapped up in driving me crazy that I don’t think he even noticed.
And, of course, it was really great cuddling up with Vernon afterwards in that weird cactus bed, and having him hold me close and rub me real gentle and romantic, and yeah, waking up in the wee hours with him on top again banging away like he just couldn’t get enough of me. For a second, all I could think about was how I used to have to climb on Lyman when I was so fat and whether I now felt too flabby to Vernon, but Lord, the way he kept grabbing at my boobs and thighs and butt while he drove me crazy, you’d have thought I was somebody like Wynonna Judd or Jo Dee Messina.
Next thing I knew after all the carrying on I was hearing Vernon snore, and seeing the sun rise through the blinds, and feeling Daisy licking my face as she sat on the floor and whined like she wanted attention or to go out and pee. So I crawled out of bed without waking Vernon, and put Daisy out on her chain in the backyard, and closed the bathroom door quietly behind me to brush my teeth and take a shower. Then I slipped back into my jeans and violet pony tee, and went in the kitchen, and began rummaging in the cabinets and fridge with the idea of fixing Vernon a tasty, hot breakfast. Well, it didn’t take long to see that Vernon’s no slouch when it comes to keeping his kitchen well stocked. OJ, milk, butter, eggs, half a roll of country sausage, a cantaloupe, Kroger’s whole-grain bread, a can of French Market chicory coffee, some blackberry preserves—just the right makings of a good Southern breakfast for just my kind of man. No matter that breakfast has always been my favorite meal and that this would be another major test of my willpower.
’Bout the time I’d started frying a big patty of sausage for him, I noticed a few red potatoes in a basket, peeled and cut one up, and tossed the cubes in the same large cast-iron skillet for hashed browns. At first I’d thought of doing soft-scrambled eggs for us both, but while I was beating four eggs with a little milk as quietly as possible, I remembered seeing a package of Jack cheese in the door of the fridge, as well as a couple of jalapeños on the windowsill, and suddenly decided to make my guy a spicy cheese omelette to really impress him.
“What in hell you doing, babe?” I then heard him yell from the bedroom.
“Just whipping up some breakfast chow to get your juices churning,” I called back as he appeared in the doorway in his shorts with his wavy dark hair all over his forehead.
“Smells good, hon,” he said as he meandered over blurry eyed, and hugged me around the waist, and peeped over my shoulder at the sausage and potatoes. “I’ll be goddamned. You’re really something, gal. Time for me to take a quick shower?”
“Hurry up,” I said after I pecked him on the lips and hoped my whiskey breath wasn’t as stale as his. “You’re gonna be late for work, and I gotta stop by the house to feed the dogs, then to the gym and be at the shelter by nine.”
Smelling the strong coffee and that sausage, and watching the potatoes as they turned crispy golden brown in the butter, made me hungrier than I’d been in months, and when the cheese began oozing out the sides of the puffy omelette, I really wondered for a minute how much longer I could keep torturing myself like this.
“Wow!” Vernon blurted when he saw the melon and omelette and sausage and hashed browns and buttered toast and small saucer of preserves. Then he looked across the table at my puny glass of juice and wedge of cantaloupe and piece of toast while I was pouring coffee into mugs and asked, “Where’s yours, hon?”
I just laughed and lied, “Too early for me to eat like you cowboys. This is all I can manage till I finish at the gym.”
“Goddammit, Let,” he kinda moaned as he dove into all the food, and I begrudged every bite of sausage and omelette he took, “that’s not enough to feed a biddy. And I don’t know why you gotta go to that stupid gym.”
I laughed again and changed the subject to a buff cocker at the shelter we were trying to place. Then, out of the blue, Vernon asked me when I was gonna let him meet my mama and sister. Oh, I knew that subject was bound to come up eventually, and I gotta admit I also feel a little guilty not telling them much about Vernon. Of course the truth is I’m downright embarrassed for him to see either one of them, which could open up a big can of worms. Plain and simple. I also made it damn clear to Sally and Mary Jane and the others at the shelter never to open their traps about my past looks when Vernon stops by, and Buzzy and the gang at Ziggy’s all know anybody who dares call me Bubbles now is just asking for big-time trouble.
Sure, to appear normal I’m always casually making some quick remark about not having much appetite when you’re cooking half the time to make money, but the funny thing about Vernon is sometimes I get the impression he doesn’t give a goddamn about my extra pounds the way he eggs me on to taste all the fattening things on his plate. Oh, one day I’ll get around to confessing my big secret to him since I believe in keeping things on the up-and-up with anybody I’m really crazy about. But I still just can’t take a chance, not till I get down to about 130 or 135 and maybe a size 10 and all my skin’s good and tight. Know what? I think when I’m ready to tell him…what I’m gonna do when I’m ready to tell him everything is say one night I wanna go to Tinhorn BBQ, then splurge for the first time and order just the small portion of brisket with coleslaw and beans, and tell Vernon how I used to knock off half a pound of barbecue, and rack of ribs, and SOS, and peach cobbler, and pitcher of beer with Lyman. Lord, for months I’ve been dreaming of eating barbecue again. Problem is, I wonder if I could keep it down.
8
WHOLE HOG
Of course I never think of