Tess was exhausted when she got home after working her third double shift in a row. The trailer was deserted. She sighed, relieved JJ wasn’t home. Her feet and lower back ached from standing on the cement floor for 16 hours. The rattle and hum of the industrial printing press echoed in her head. It was a good job, she supposed. She was lucky to have a job when most everybody they knew was out of work. The pay was lousy, the benefits nearly non-existent; but there was plenty of opportunity for overtime. It was her overtime that was keeping them afloat; if they had to depend on just her regular paycheck, she and JJ have been living out of his truck months ago.
She looked around. Everything was a mess. The dirty dishes were left soaking in the sink. He’d managed to track mud in from outside, where he’d probably spent the morning four-wheeling through the woods; the footprints stood out in contrast, even against the cheap, dirty tan carpet. The heat was off; JJ was supposed to have fixed the thermostat. It was in pieces on the kitchen counter. She wasn’t surprised. Their home was usually in worse shape. Most of the time, she went ahead and cleaned it up. He would expect it to be clean when he came home from drinking and hanging out with Darryl and Billy. The two of them stood up with JJ in Tess and JJ’s wedding. He’d known them since elementary school. As far as Tess could tell, they still thought they were Mrs. Morgan’s fourth grade class.
They sure as shit act like they are. Of course, if JJ was out with them – and there wasn’t a night when he wasn’t -- that just meant he was out drinking and pushing up on those girls at the bar. Those WHORES, she thought. That’s what Granny would’ve called them. Whores. Each one of them knew JJ was married. But it didn’t matter to them because it didn’t matter to him.
She soaked in the silence and slid her feet out of her shoes. She knew better than to look in the mirror that hung next to the door. She didn’t want to see how tired she looked. She especially didn’t want to see how she looked in a novelty Time Magazine mirror with a caption that read PERSON OF THE YEAR.
“But it’s funny,” JJ had told her when he brought it home from one of his unsuccessful days at the flea market. “Besides, it might boost your self-esteem.”
She snorted. Like he ever CARED about my self-esteem.
The wall clock told her she still had time. Time to soak in the silence. Time to relax. Time before he stumbled home smelling of warm beer and the cheap perfume they sold at the Speed Mart next door to the bar. She walked towards the back of the small trailer they called home, stopping in the closet sized bathroom to start her bath water. She turned the hot water way up. She wanted it to burn her. After she got the water at the right temperature, she got the small canister of bath oil balls out from under the sink. There was one left. She sighed, dropped it in, and walked into the bedroom, where she peeled off her clothes and put them in the dirty clothes hamper. JJ’s dirty clothes from the previous two days were on the floor around the hamper.
On nights like these, she tried to imagine how Granny had put up with it. How she’d put up with her husband, Tess’s grandfather, when he went out drinking and chasing pussy. Then she reminded herself that Granny didn’t put up with it. Her grandfather had been a good man. A better man than her own father, who ran off and deserted her after her mother died. A better man than any of the boys she’d dated growing up. Of all the men she’d met in her life, her grandfather had been the only one who was worth a damn.
She tried to tell you, Tess thought. Granny had tried to tell her JJ wasn’t any good. When they started dating, Tess was a sophomore in high school. If JJ had stayed in school he would have graduated Tess’s freshman year. The first time she saw him at the Tastee Freeze, and he smiled at her with that shit kicker smile, she was done. It was love.
“Why you running off with that Tremaine boy?” she asked the second time she caught Tess trying to sneak in after seeing JJ. “You know where his family lives. Johnny Senior hadn’t done nothing worth a damn in his whole life. Nor his father before him. All they do is find some poor girl who’ll lay down, then get her pregnant.” Granny spit on the front porch for effect. “You better not let him do NOTHIN’, Tessie, or you’ll end up regretting it.”
She stood and looked at herself in large mirror that was attached to her dresser. As long as she didn’t look at her face, Tess liked the way she looked. Her body was still good. Her tummy was smooth, when most of the girls her age had been stretched and pulled by multiple pregnancies. Her tits were still high and tight. Her ass had always been a little round and flat – but she had her dad to thank for that. Granny had been wrong about one thing. JJ hadn’t married her because he’d gotten her knocked up. They got married because they were in love. He said he didn’t want kids. At least, not for a while. “I’m still trying to grow up,” he told her. “I can’t deal with no kid.” Of course, he wouldn’t wear a condom. She had to go on the pill. But it had been for the best. She couldn’t imagine having to take care of TWO of them.
She walked the two and half steps from the bedroom to the bathroom naked. If JJ had been home, he wouldn’t have even batted an eye. Tess couldn’t remember the last time he looked at her. Mostly, he looked through her; as if she were the only thing between him and the door. She tested her bath temperature with her big toe, and, satisfied, stepped in. She sat in the water and slid until her body was submerged under water. Then she turned off the water using her foot. That was when she heard the foot steps on the wooden porch that JJ was supposed to have repaired months ago. From the sound, JJ was bringing the boys in with him for a night cap and a few games of Deer Hunter on the PlayStation. She sighed, reached up, and swung the bathroom door closed, bracing for the moment the silence would end.
