Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [56]
“Like hell. This is one story circulatin’ through Wise County that has some meat on its bones. Now, get serious. You can’t just turn yer husband loose up in Coeburn and expect him to find his way back home. That’s too far from Cracker’s Neck. He’s lost. You got to make him come home. Or I’ll tell you what, he’ll be gone.” Fleeta sits down. I’ve never seen her upset in this way.
I sit down. I have to. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“I’ve followed the woman,” Otto announces. “I ain’t proud of it. But I done did it. I know where she lives. And I know what company she keeps up ’ere.”
“You saw …” I look at Otto, and he looks away sadly. “Well.”
I study my hands as though they’re brand new and I’m seeing them on the ends of my arms for the very first time. I don’t know what to say to my friends. Do I tell them that I’ve seen signs too, that I’ve been suspicious? That I had a feeling the first time I saw Karen Bell? I want to open up and tell them everything, but I can’t. My loyalty to my husband, who has probably been disloyal to me, stops me.
“I need some air,” I tell my friends. I stand up. So do they, and the sound of stools scraping linoleum is deafening.
Iva Lou follows me out to the Jeep and jumps into the passenger side. Mentally, I know I need to turn the key to start the engine, but I can’t.
“Look. It ain’t a done deal.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“I been trying to tell ye. I heard bits and pieces of things. You know how stories travel.”
“What do I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? How can I do nothing?”
“We do not know the extent of it. Now, I know your husband. I don’t think he loves her. I don’t think he could. I don’t think he loves any woman but you. Really. So that’s good fer you. But you got a bigger problem.”
“What?” What is Iva Lou talking about? What could be worse?
“Karen Bell is your problem. She wants him. And she wants him baaaaad. That’s a fact. I heard that straight out of the mouth of her best friend, Benita Hensley up to the county library. She works up ’ere, and she told me herself.”
Who are all these people, these strangers, who know my name and my business? What do they want? Why do they care about me and my situation? The noise in my head gets louder as Iva Lou goes on.
“ ’Cause Karen Bell, you can’t control. She’s a wing nut and a wild card, ’cept she’s a genius, ’cause she acts like a sure and steady professional woman. She’s had a series of men too. Not that there’s anything to judge about that.” Of course there isn’t. This is Iva Lou, the Siren Goddess of Big Stone Gap talking.
“I don’t want to hear another thing.”
“Listen to me. I have some experience as the Other Woman. I don’t think there’s a single scenario out there that I ain’t in some way, at some point, been in. So you have what might be called a secret weapon in me, as your friend. I know what Karen Bell is up to. She can’t pull anything I ain’t seen before or done myself.” Iva Lou fishes in her purse for a cigarette. “You need to listen to me, because I know what I’m talking about. There’s Other Women who just want to play, have dinner, a movie, and some exciting sex; and then there’s the Other Women who are husband hunting. And they are relentless. They don’t rest till they got of yorn’s what they think they want for themselves, and then it’s too late for all concerned. Karen Bell is thirty-four years old—”
“She’s forty if she’s a day.”
“Honey. She’s thirty-four. Spec checked with the DMV.”
“Spec!” I hit the steering wheel. Does everybody in Wise County know my business?
“He has a connection at the DMV. We had to tell him. Honey-o, here’s the deal. She wants to git murried, and she wants kids, and she thinks Jack Mac would pass on a fine set of genes. She told Benita Hensley that Jack MacChesney is one of the smartest men she’s ever known, that he’s a man with a lot of Unrealized Potential. How do you like that? Karen Bell can spot potential. I almost threw up.”
“I feel sick myself.”
“I know. I know. I am so glad I’m murried and not foolin’ around no