Mean Woman Blues

don’t believe there’s such a thing as God’s truth?”
    “Will y’all
stop
!” Her father was furious. “My stomach’s churnin’ and churnin’.” That was his unvarying reaction to conflict, which was inevitable in all Whittaker family visits. When there was silence, he said, “Now tell us about school, Terri.”
    The rest of the evening continued that way: a pocket of peace followed by an eruption of aimless, unfocused anger. And when it was over, her parents thanked her for coming and said how much they’d enjoyed the evening and how they didn’t see her enough and wished they could see her more and when could they do it again. This happened every time and never failed to make her feel sad. They clearly didn’t have a clue how to communicate with her, didn’t approve of her, and didn’t enjoy her company, yet they wanted to. Actually, she wasn’t sure of that; in some dim corner of her soul, she knew that
she
wanted to. She thought that perhaps they just wanted to think they did.
    Her mother had given her half the bought chocolate cake, which Terri took because she thought Isaac might enjoy it. (She herself avoided sweets and fats lest she turn into a balloon.)
Why not take it to him now?
she thought.
    She was desperate for someone to talk to. Being with her parents always made her feel desperate, as if she were alone in the world and there was no hope.
    She could simply go over to Isaac’s house and surprise him— have a second evening after the first fiasco. Actually, they hadn’t seen each other all weekend. Isaac had gone to visit
his
mother— in Atlanta, she thought— but he was coming back tonight. He’d said he’d call her; that meant he’d be home.
    He might be too tired to see her. Well, in that case, she could just drop off the cake and kiss him good night. What could be wrong with that? Who wouldn’t be glad to see half a chocolate cake?
    If she’d really thought about it, she’d have known she had expectations beyond cake delivery. Isaac lived in the Bywater, and Terri lived in Carrollton, two neighborhoods about as far from each other as you can get.
    She felt a little rush of happiness as she got out of her beat-up Toyota and saw that the lights were on in his living room. She was nearly up the front porch steps when she noticed the curtains weren’t completely closed. What was he doing? she wondered, and peeked.
    He was sitting in a chair, and someone was with him. A woman about Terri’s age, maybe even younger, was packing a suitcase lying open on his sofa. Terri got it instantly: The woman was about to go home after spending the weekend with him.
    He had lied to her. He hadn’t gone away to see his mother at all. The serious little talk she’d had with him about whether he could possibly join her at her parents’ house now seemed a sham. He’d said he really cared about her, but he didn’t think they were at the stage yet of meeting each other’s parents.
    She stopped dead in her tracks and watched a moment. But only a moment. Before she knew she was doing it, she threw the cake at the door. The plate her mother had left it on banged satisfactorily and maybe broke. She couldn’t be sure, she didn’t look back.
    She only heard the door open suddenly and then voices, laughing, she thought.
    Yes. She was almost sure she heard them laughing at her.
    He had to know who it was, even from the back; who else had blue hair and a beat-up, dented, rusty old Toyota? He didn’t even call to her. That was how much she meant to him.
    She drove back to her shabby little place in Carrollton, tears nearly blinding her, the tension of the evening giving way to despair. She flopped on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, wishing like hell for a cigarette, though she no longer smoked, not, for one thing, being able to afford it.
    That— and everything— was so damned expensive. She did tutoring, errands, and intermittent clerical work for a few off-campus clients, but she never had two nickels, as her father would say, to rub together.
    Almost not realizing she was doing it she got up, slipped into her shoes, picked up her keys, stuffed five dollars in her pocket and went back out to get cigarettes.
    She was nearly home, a fat unopened pack on the seat beside her, when she saw the blue lights of a police car. Its driver was signaling her. Her? Terri? Thank God, she thought, she hadn’t been drinking.
    Wondering what on earth was up, she pulled over and got out of the car,