14 June 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2

Strange Men in Bars

by LEAH BROWNING

Jennifer is sitting alone, nursing a 7UP and squinting across a dim, smoky motel lounge at her mother. It's a Thursday night around ten o'clock, and Mallory's already had three Black Russians and a vodka tonic. The effect of this combination is that Jennifer's 43-year-old mother—a woman who works in a bank and wears expensive tailored suits and strings of pearls, who speaks in a low, carefully modulated voice about stock options at the breakfast table—is sliding around a dance floor with a drunk man from the bar, his arms knotted around her waist and his face buried in her neck. It's a sickening sight, yet Jennifer is unable to look away.

The band takes a five-minute break, but Mallory and her partner go on dancing for a few seconds after the music stops, swaying to some rhythm only they can hear. At last they break apart, and the man pats her arm clumsily before lurching away.

For a moment, Jennifer thinks she sees a look of recognition; she thinks that Mallory realizes how crazy this is. But then Mallory turns and disappears through the swinging doors at the back of the room.

Jennifer slips out of her booth and follows Mallory from the lounge into the back hallway, which is equally dim and smells faintly of disinfectant. Mallory is strategically poised between the men's and women's bathrooms.

"Mom," Jennifer says. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for Rick," her mother says in a bright, false tone. She tucks a stray hair behind her ear and gives Jennifer a little smile.

Rick is the bass player from the band: a lean, beautiful boy just out of college. He stopped calling Mallory about a month ago.

"Come on, Mom. Let's go home," Jennifer says. "I have a math test in the morning."

Mallory shakes her head. "What are you talking about? We're having fun."

The door of the men's restroom swings open.

"Rick!" Mallory exclaims, feigning surprise.

Looking uncomfortable, Rick says, "Hey."

"I didn't know you were here. Jennifer and I are just having a little girls' night out." She slings one arm around Jennifer's shoulder.

Rick sighs. "Mallory," he says. "Seriously. You gotta quit following me. This is the third time this week."

Mallory's smile stays frozen in place. Weakly, she says, "I don't know what you're talking about. We're just…" Her voice trails off.

He frowns. "Yeah, well, I gotta get back out there." He presses through one of the swinging doors and escapes into the main room.

Mallory leans against the wall and says, "Oh, Jenny, I made such a fool of myself."

"It's all right," Jennifer tells her. "Don't feel bad." She pats her mother's arm, and then when Mallory's feeling better, drives her home and puts her to bed.

The next night, Jennifer tells Mallory that she isn't going.

"Come on," Mallory says. "It's Friday. Let's go out and have some fun. You've been working too hard anyway."

Jennifer is sitting on her bed in a white bathrobe and slippers with a history textbook propped in her lap. She had thought Mallory might take the hint and leave her alone.

Instead, Mallory hangs in the doorway wearing an outfit from the eighties: a black jacket with hot pink streaks and big shoulder pads, sleeves pushed back from her wrists, with a pair of black slacks and a black shirt. Her dark hair is brushed back, and she has on the little gold studs Jennifer gave her as a birthday present the year before.

"You're turning into a stalker," Jennifer says. "Just forget about Rick."

"I don't want to forget about Rick. Now get dressed and let's go. Come on." Mallory's voice is brisk, almost mom-like, but her hand is trembling and there are bags under her eyes that careful makeup hasn't quite concealed.

Jennifer can't stand the thought of making her beg. She sighs reluctantly. "All right. I'll be out in a few minutes."

Rick and company are back in the motel lounge for the evening. Jennifer sits in a corner booth. She avoids looking across the room at Mallory, who's stumbling against chairs and apologizing to people in a low, slurred voice.

A middle-aged man stops by Jennifer's table and holds out two mugs of beer. "Do you mind if I sit down?" he asks. "You look lonely."

"No, thank you," Jennifer says, hating how prim her voice sounds. "My mother told me not to talk to strange men in bars."

He raises his eyebrows. "Isn’t that your mother?" He juts his chin, indicating a point across the room. "I saw you come in with her."

Jennifer glances over. Mallory is standing near the stage with her eyes closed, holding her arms in the air and swaying back and forth almost in time with the music. Feeling pained, Jennifer nods.

"She looks lonely, too," the man says, and he carries the mugs of beer back to the bar and sits down on one of the stools.

Onstage, Rick goes on plucking the strings of the bass as though he has absolutely nothing else on his mind.

In the beginning, Jennifer had thought that Rick's presence was a good thing. Her mother hadn't had a serious relationship in almost a year, and Mallory said that Rick made her feel like a teenager again. Jennifer, who was seventeen, didn't see how this could be a good thing, but Mallory seemed to think that it was.

And for a while, her mother acted genuinely happy—singing in the shower, buying flowers for the kitchen. There was no indication of the trouble ahead, and Jennifer didn't worry. There had been other breakups, of course, but this kind of prolonged grief was completely unprecedented.

Mallory's last boyfriend had been an investment banker with a bald spot the size of a silver dollar on the crown of his head. After they dated for a year, he asked Mallory to marry him, and she said no. The night they split up, Jennifer was sitting on her bed eating potato chips very slowly and counting backwards from one thousand in Spanish, trying not to listen to them carrying on in the living room.

The guy cried before he left, Jennifer could hear him; she plugged her ears and tried to think about something else. But that was the end of the drama: he left the house, and Mallory continued on with her life.

The band takes a break, and Mallory follows Rick into the hallway. By the time Jennifer reaches them, Mallory has him cornered.

"Just give me one more chance," she's pleading, and Jennifer feels a stab of embarrassment. A couple of the other band members are standing off to one side, pretending not to listen.

Jennifer touches Mallory's arm. "Come on, Mom," she says gently. "Let's go."

Mallory shrugs her off. "Rick," she says mournfully. "Why don't you want me anymore?"

Her mother might really be crazy, Jennifer thinks. Mallory's hair, so carefully combed at home, is wild and tangled, and she seems to have lost one of her shoes, giving her a strangely lopsided appearance.

"Just let it go, Mallory," Rick says quietly. "It's over, okay?"

"Hey, guys," someone calls from the other end of the hallway, and Jennifer turns to see a small redhead on her way toward them. Her hair is as light and springy as her step, and when she reaches their end of the hall, she puts her arm around Rick's waist. She's a good twenty years younger than Mallory, if not more. In fact, Jennifer thinks she may have seen her before at school.

In a small voice, Mallory says, "Are you dating her, now?"

The girl smiles, friendly as a new puppy. Turning to Rick, she says, "Is that your mom or something?"

Mallory's eyes widen. She begins to shake all over. Reaching up, she grabs two handfuls of her own hair and screams, a very loud sound in the quiet hallway.

The girl's smile fades. She watches incredulously as Mallory charges toward Rick, who flinches but doesn't move aside as Mallory punches him in the stomach.

After the motel security guard looks at both of their driver's licenses, he tells Jennifer that he's required to send Mallory home with an adult, and Jennifer ends up having to telephone Mallory's mother and drive to her house to spend the night. Jennifer feels terrible about making the call, as though she is the one who has done something to be ashamed of.

Her grandmother opens the front door without a word, stepping aside to let them in. Despite the hour, she has on a slim beige pantsuit and her butter-blond hair is pulled up in a knot.

Mallory has been crying, and her eyes and nose are red and swollen. Jennifer was unable to find her shoe in the dark lounge, and Mallory's gait is uneven as she shuffles into the house, leaning heavily on Jennifer's arm.

Jennifer helps Mallory onto the couch, which is white and expensive, like everything else in the house. Mallory groans and leans back against one of the pillows.

Grimacing, Jennifer's grandmother says, "For God's sake, Mallory, pull yourself together."

"Oh, Mom," Mallory says. "I'm fine."

"Yes, I can see that."

"Jesus, would you get off my back? I'm doing the best I can." With difficulty, Mallory gets to her feet. Her body is giving off a warm, boozy smell. "Jen," she says. "Jenny. I'm sorry I ruined your evening." Jennifer stiffens as her mother leans forward to embrace her.

In the morning, Jennifer's grandmother makes her breakfast. "Do you want toast?" Pamela asks.

"Yes, please."

Pamela places two slices of bread in the toaster oven and spoons a pile of mushy scrambled eggs onto a plate. Jennifer is squeamish about eggs, but she doesn't say anything. Her grandmother has never really learned how to cook, and Jennifer knows that she is making an effort. Pamela slathers the toast with butter and sits down in the chair across from Jennifer.

"Thanks." Jennifer takes small bites of bread and chews slowly.

"Your mom's having a hard time," Pamela says. "I guess you know that."

Jennifer swallows her food. "Yeah."

Pamela pauses, giving Jennifer the impression that she is turning words over in her mind. Finally she says, "I hope you don't feel guilty. This isn't your fault."

Surprised, Jennifer asks, "What does this have to do with me?"

Her grandmother blinks. "You know. You're slipping away."

"What?"

"You're almost eighteen. Next year you'll be in college, and she'll be alone."

Jennifer frowns. In any meaningful way, it has been just the two of them for as long as she can remember. Jennifer doesn't know much about her father. Mallory said once that he was married to someone else when they got together. She doesn't like to talk about it.

When Jennifer was sixteen, she spent an entire long weekend at her best friend Lucy's house. One night, as they lay in the dark, she confided that her mother had gotten pregnant with her by accident, that she had been the product of an affair.

Lucy was the youngest of five children. "I was an accident, too," she said.

"Really?" For some reason, it had never occurred to Jennifer that that could happen in regular families.

In the dark, Lucy nodded. "When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she tried to commit suicide."

Jennifer was shocked into silence. The only thing she could think of to say was, "Why?"

"My brother was only four months old when she got pregnant again. She said she was overwhelmed. They didn't want any more kids. She thought you couldn't get pregnant if you were breastfeeding."

"That was dumb," Jennifer said, then added quickly, "I'm sorry."

She and Lucy had been friends for a long time. Lucy said, "It's okay."

The next morning, Lucy's dad made pancakes with butter and maple syrup, and when Lucy's mother came into the kitchen in her bathrobe, he kissed her neck and she laughed. It was hard to imagine her sixteen years younger, lying in a bathtub trying to slit her wrists.

Pamela lets them go home on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday night, Mallory gets dressed up in her crazy clothes again.

"Would you please stop," Jennifer says.

"Come with me," Mallory says. "It'll be just us girls."

Jennifer tries to hide her disgust. "I'm not going. I have a paper to write, anyway."

Mallory's laugh sounds forced. "Okay, then. I'll see you later."

"You know not to drink and drive, right? Call a cab."

Her mother winces. "Don't worry."

After school the next day, Jennifer sits in the bleachers above the football field and watches the team practice. Mallory was a wreck that morning when Jennifer woke her up for work, and Jennifer doesn't want to go home.

Even from a distance, Jennifer can hear the players grunting as they barrel into the practice dummy. The grass is yellow and muddy under their feet.

When they leave, she lifts her backpack onto her shoulder and walks to the grocery store. Everything about that place is soothing: all neatness and order, everything in its proper place. On her way out of the store she feels confident, as though the plastic bags contain something more substantial than food and a package of paper napkins.

She almost doesn't see him. If she had left the store just one minute later, she wouldn't have. But she does leave then, and she does see him, heading across the street with his arm around a curvy dark-haired girl.

Jennifer feels a stab of pain in her heart and in her stomach. He broke up with her around the same time Rick broke up with her mother, and she goes out of her way to avoid seeing him in the halls at school. He's not my boyfriend anymore, she reminds herself, but this only makes the pain worse. She had let herself imagine that he'd never be able to get over her.

Mallory is in the living room when Jennifer gets home. The blinds are drawn and Mallory hasn't turned on any lights, so there is only a dim shadowy outline on the couch and the clinking of ice cubes.

"Hey, Mom," Jennifer says, trying to sound cheerful. Using the side of her arm, she flips on the light and her mother blinks, disoriented in the sudden brightness. Mallory is still wearing her work clothes, but they look rumpled and shapeless, and her lipstick is worn off.

"You want me to make dinner?" Jennifer asks. She is still carrying the plastic bags filled with groceries, and the weight cuts across her fingers.

"That would be great," Mallory says, "but I don't have much of an appetite."

Jennifer hasn't had a period in a month and a half, and she imagines how she could tell Mallory this, and then what would happen.

"How about chicken and baked potatoes," Jennifer says finally. "You'll be hungry by the time that's ready."

They eat at the kitchen table. Mallory's eyes are glazed, bloodshot. She picks at her food with a fork and sips the water Jennifer put at her place.

Later that night, Jennifer will dream about an apartment building being demolished by a wrecking ball, and in the empty space a whole field of roses growing wild and tall and tangled. When she wakes up, there will be blood on her underwear and tears will come to her eyes, she'll be so relieved.

In a distant voice, Mallory says, "I wasn't always like this, you know. I used to be just like you," and suddenly Jennifer sees that this is true; she sees how it could happen.

Mallory lifts her hand, touching the strand of pearls at her neck. She clears her throat. "Would you like to go out tonight?" she asks Jennifer.

Incredulously, Jennifer says, "Are you kidding me?"

"Yes." Their eyes meet. Mallory looks old and brittle, and when she smiles, it is a small, self-conscious flicker, a smile so economical that Jennifer thinks every movement must be causing her mother pain.