Page 49 of Good Days Bad Days
Is this what Betty does? Find ways to convince men to take care of her, manipulate them with her sex appeal and the touch of innocence that follows her around like a spotlight? It’s half past eleven. Martha should be home safe by now, not that I have any way of knowing. She’s probably up and working on our proposal—all alone.
My life is quickly turning ridiculous. There are real issues in this world, and I should know—they destroyed my family. And here I am on a Saturday night running away from one woman while searching dark corners of a hotel parking lot for another one.
As I turn down the last lane of parked cars behind building four, my headlights rest on Betty’s red Corvette. I shift into park and get out to see if perhaps she’s waiting inside her vehicle, when something crunches under the sole of my shoe. I squint at the ground and in the dim light make out sparkling clusters of shattered glass.
“What in the world?” The hairs on my arm stand up as I creep close enough to the automobile to see through the windows, but I quickly realize there’s no glass. Every window has been demolished, as though the car was used as target practice. I check the parked vehicles to the left and right, but they appear untouched.
“Betty!” I call out in a hushed whisper. There’s no response.
I dig in my pockets for my keys, remembering the Swiss Army knife I’m carrying. Unfolding the one-inch blade, I lean into the driver’s sidethrough the shattered window, knife clutched in my right hand, and call her name again.
“Betty? Are you in here?”
There’s nothing inside other than glass and debris. I carefully pull myself back out, avoiding the jagged edges, and examine the rest of the car. The door is pocked with dents, and the paint is gouged so deeply that the metal underneath is visible. What the hell happened here?
“Greg?” I hear my name. It’s the same small, wobbly voice from the phone an hour ago asking me for help.
“Betty?” I narrow my eyes in the darkness, trying to see where her voice is coming from.
“Over here.” A slight form moves toward me from behind the dumpster at the end of the line of parked cars. At first, I can’t make out more than a pile of blond hair twisted on her head, but as she crosses through my high beams, her image comes into focus.
It’s Betty and she’s been crying.
She wears jeans, a white blouse, and a sweater around her shoulders that hangs askew like it’s trying to escape. She’s shaking.
“My God, what happened?” I fold up my less-than-helpful knife and leap over the glass-littered terrain to meet her at the front of my car. The headlights shine in her eyes. I examine her closely, like a mother checking a toddler for injury after a tumble. She appears unharmed, a little scratch at her cheek and some blood under her nails.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says, trembling as though she’s caught a chill. “Though it doesn’t look like my car is doing so great.”
She takes a step forward and stumbles, and I notice she’s only wearing one shoe; her other foot is bare and covered in crimson scratches.
“Don’t move,” I say. “There’s glass everywhere.” Working off an instinct I didn’t know I had, I dip low, fling her arm around my neck, and steady her with a hand around her waist. “Lean on me.”
“Thank you,” she says, hopping through the battlefield on her one covered foot.
She smells of perfume and sweat and the faint odor of whiskey and feels frail, so easily breakable, like one false move could snap her in half. A shocking, boiling, bubbling, furious sensation builds inside me. What kind of selfish animal did this to her?
Anger is not an emotion I let inside often, not something I allow to overtake me after a childhood of dodging my father’s indiscriminate ire. But this throbbing, vengeful rage refuses to relent, and by the time I get both of us into the car, I’m grasping at the steering wheel like I might fall out if I let go. My breathing is ragged, and the rush of perspiration on my forehead drips down my face.
“Where’s the security office? We need to report this.” I start driving toward the main building. Someone there will be able to help.
“No. We can’t,” she says, sitting up on the edge of the cracked vinyl, her macramé bag slipping off her lap.
“They’ll call the cops. There’s plenty of security in the club. No way they let this kind of thing happen to their employees.” The curved drive of the main entrance is one turn away. I’ll leave Betty in the car. I’ll go in and get a security guard or tell them to call the police. I won’t let my nerves or anxiety get in the way. I’ll be a man, “for once,” as my pop used to say.
“No. Don’t. Please.” She grabs the steering wheel as I’m about to make the turn, and I have to step on the brake to keep from running off the road onto a manicured lawn. Her pupils are dilated in fear. “I don’t work here anymore.”
“Oh,” I say, looking her over again. Her hair is pinned up, styled and sprayed, and the blue eyeshadow, full red lips, and dark liner look similar to when I first saw her here at the VIP Room. “I’m sure they’d still call the police. Your car, that’s not OK. Unless—” I consider a nefarious possibility. “Did they do this?”
I’ve heard gossip, dark rumors of Playboy’s association with the Mafia. This seems like something from the whispered stories of mob violence in the big city, intimidation or retaliation, but how could a small-town girl like Betty be involved in such a thing?
“Heavens, no.” She looks at me like I said Jesus Christ himself was the president of the United States. Then, she stares at the front doors of the lobby; the yellow lights lining the lane reflect off the moisture in her eyes like summer fireflies. “It’s a long story. I just want to go home.” She blinks away the rising tears and forces a smile. “Please.”
I long to rush into that building, kick through the glass doors, and call in the cavalry. I wish I could build a wall around her so nothing like this can ever happen again. I want to fix it for now and forever, not run away like a coward with my tail between my legs. I want to fight; I want to dig my nails into my palms as I curl up a fist and let it fly against whoever stands in my way. But the one person I don’t want to fight isher. And she’s asking me to put her wants in front of my own, to let her make the decision about how to navigate this situation. And maybe the thing that Martha said about Betty earlier tonight is true—I don’t know how to say no to her.
“Of course.” I swerve back onto the main road, holding my tongue.
Betty clicks on the radio and flips through static until she finds a station playing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” She shifts in the seat over and over again, and by the time we get to 50, she seems to have found a position that works, with her forehead pressed against the window, arm propped on the armrest, and the seat belt strap flapping behind her, unused. I accelerate, watching the lines in the road, trying not to choke on my swallowed anger.
