It woulda been nicer to live alone, but at least now Beth couldn’t lay there at night and talk me half to death when I wanted some quiet. She didn’t have any business complaining about my deodorant or my haircut or my tattoos. She still did, but I didn’t have to pay attention.

The real difference was that Beth couldn’t put her hand on my dick and say, “Turn off the TV and let’s go in the bedroom,” whether I wanted to or not. I don’t think I could have stomached that. Not when I had Wavy burned in my brain. Some nights, when I came home from work and walked into the kitchen, all I could think of was the way she’d stood on the chair and stripped down to her boots. How she’d run her hands over me. No woman had ever looked at me the way she did, or touched me that way. Like she wanted me, like I was worth wanting.

Most times all I could think of was how she’d come there and given herself to me. I didn’t even have the decency to tell her we couldn’t be together until after. Just desperate to be with her. I was still the same guy who let her give me a hand job when she was all of thirteen.

15

RENEE

August 1990

It got to where Wavy wouldn’t even let me check the mailbox. If I went to get the mail, she practically tackled me when I came back, and yanked it out of my hands.

“Good thing I’m not expecting any love letters,” I said, while she rifled through the fliers and bills.

“You don’t need love letters.” She thumped her hand on the kitchen table half-a-dozen times to mimic the sound of my headboard knocking against my bedroom wall, but I knew she didn’t begrudge me the fun I was having with Darrin.

Three weeks later, Wavy’s answer came. Or rather an answer. It was a copy of the form she submitted, with the bottom half filled out by hand. The box next to This matter was not set for hearing had been checked. Below that, where the form said, “After review of the file and evidence, the court orders that the above referenced Protection or No Contact Order, entered on September 9, 1983, shall be modified as follows,” someone had written NO modification. Order remains in force. That same person had signed the form. Judge C. J. Maber.

“The judge said no? He said no? What a fucking asshole!” I was so pissed off, I couldn’t imagine how angry Wavy must have been. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she had torn the form up or thrown her typewriter down the stairs, but she didn’t. She spent maybe a minute glaring at the form and grinding her teeth. Then she sat down, stuck a piece of paper in the typewriter and started typing: Dear Judge Maber.

Contrary to Wavy’s usual habits, it was short and polite, just a request to meet with the judge. When she didn’t get an answer, though, the letters multiplied exponentially. The sheer quantity of them started to worry me, because at what point did it become harassment to send a letter a day to a judge? At least if the cops showed up, Wavy had returned all the illicitly borrowed law books to the library.

I wasn’t home when the letter came, but I knew something big had happened by the way Wavy was tearing around the apartment when I got home from my first class of the semester. She had half the clothes in her closet strewn out on the couch, and as soon as I walked in, she put the letter in my hand. It wasn’t even from the judge. It was from his clerk, and it just said, Judge Maber is available to meet with you on Wednesday, August 15th at 8:00 am. The judge’s court session begins at 9:00 a.m., so please be prompt.

We had less than thirty-six hours to get Wavy ready for her meeting with the judge and the girl owned a closet full of plain-Jane smocks, four pairs of shoes, two pairs of boots, shower shoes, and a pair of tennis shoes for her phys ed requirement that I know for a fact she bought in the children’s department. If I was going to help Wavy look like an adult, we had to start from scratch.

I don’t know if Wavy slept that night, but the next morning, we drove into the city early enough to be there when the stores opened. Within an hour, we had to give up on a business suit. They didn’t make them in Wavy’s size. We settled on a school uniform skirt in navy wool, but there was nothing else in the girls section at Macy’s that didn’t look like it was for little girls. The cashier there suggested what she called a “luxury ladies store” that carried small sizes. The sort of chichi place my mother loved to shop at. Wavy had turned twenty-one in July, so she could write checks off her trust without getting permission from anyone. Otherwise, I could imagine her aunt’s response to Wavy dropping almost four hundred dollars on a silk blouse in an extra-small petite, and a pair of Italian snakeskin sling-back pumps in a size four-and-a-half. My mother once described Wavy as “two steps away from the trailer park,” so I couldn’t wait to tell her they had the same taste in dress shoes.

Back at the apartment, Wavy washed the styling gel out of her hair and I gave her waves instead of spikes. I showed her how to shave her legs, even though she didn’t need it. You couldn’t even see the hairs on her legs.

“On principle,” she said. If adults shaved their legs, Wavy would shave hers.

Then we took the only trial run we were going to get. Skirt, blouse, bra, pantyhose, and shoes. I taught her how to walk in the heels, and once she could manage the stairs and a trip around the block, I officially declared her a grown-up.

In the dark hours of Wednesday morning, we made three attempts at her makeup. The first time, she was nervous about me touching her face. The second failure was a product of how disturbing Wavy looked in full makeup. Like a child prostitute. In the end, we went minimalist: lipstick, eye shadow. By the time she left for Garringer, the sun was coming up, and Wavy looked, if not exactly like an adult, then adultlike.