Paradise

by Jill S. Alexander

  I knew that was hard for Waylon to admit. “No worries.” I was more confident in my ability to get there than I was in his ability to perform. “Nothing can keep me from Austin.”

  The cool winds of March and April had died down. The early May evening was as still as dawn. The only movement was a buzzard circling high over the rolling pasture and a jarring racket from the front side of the hangar.

  Tires sailing over gravel.

  Skidding to a stop.

  A familiar door squawking open and slamming shut.

  The click-shh-click-shh of stilettos tottering across the gravel toward us.

  Waylon gripped his steering wheel to pull himself into his old Camaro, oblivious to the sound of someone arriving.

  “Don’t,” I said. Grabbed his arm.

  The thought of Mother finding the drums, figuring out about the band iced me in the moment. She’d never approve. She’d blame the drums for any ill she could think of and forbid me to play. I could not lose the drums. I couldn’t.

  In a split second, I made a choice. The only thing I knew would keep her from nosing around, finding the drums. Keep her from any hint of my going to Texapalooza.

  As Mother rounded the corner of the hangar, I seized Waylon’s head in my hands. “Kiss me, Waylon.”

  30

  GIMME THREE STEPS

  On a scale of one to ten, the kiss was a two. Too sudden. Too hard. Waylon stayed so tense all the time that his naturally thin lips cracked from dryness. It was like rubbing my lips across the scales of a fish. When I turned him loose, Waylon kept his mouth pinched tight and his nose turned up as if he’d gotten a whiff of a skunk. A sentiment I shared.

  But the kiss worked.

  Mother shrieked like a swamp witch, “EeeeeEEEEEEEEE!”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw her: hands to her face, pink satin blouse shimmering in the sun, capri jeans squeezing her in like a sausage casing, pink platform stilettos.

  I straightened Waylon’s skull cap. In the fury of the moment, my grip on his head had pulled the cap nearly over his eyes. “Go.” I shoved him inside his old Camaro. He caught a glimpse of my mother and fumbled for his keys. “Drive off now.”

  Waylon cranked his car and charged into the pasture. Away from the drive between the house and the hangar. Away from my mother. His tires laid the tall grass flat, cutting a trail through the pasture.

  I steadied my resolve for whatever drama she’d rain down on me. I could take it. She’d be swinging at a ghost. I’d be on my way to Austin. But when I turned to face my mother, she was gone. Disappeared.

  I ran around the hangar in time to see Mother’s Suburban hightail it across the pasture. Making a beeline for the fence. Hammer down. She was cutting Waylon off before he could leave the farm.

  The ground under my feet shook and so did I. She was going after him. I never planned on that.

  As Waylon raced for the gate, Mother shot like a dart in front of him. The broad side of the Suburban a bull’s-eye for the Camaro.

  I ran hard down the gravel drive toward them. “STOP! STOP IT!”

  In a sharp instant, the Camaro’s engine whined down, the pipes backfired and popped, and Waylon cut the wheel, angling the car within a whisker of clipping the Suburban’s front bumper. When he got in front of her, Waylon took off again. Pouring on the gas. Shredding the clover in the pasture. His wide back wheels firing red buds and dirt clods onto the Suburban—thwonk-thwonk-thwonk-thwonk—pummeling the hood. Waylon circled trying to lose her.

  Mother chased him. Rode his bumper around and around and around, nose to tail, until finally Waylon drifted onto the driveway, catching traction on the gravel. The Camaro’s engine roared as he sped across the cattle drive and skidded onto the blacktop county road. He smoked the tires and laid a line of rubber twenty yards long.

  Mother’s Suburban rattled toward the gate. The taillights flickered as she bounced across the cattle guard. She paused at the road. I could see her watching Waylon disappear over the rolling hills. The hum of his car engine fading like the end of a song. Mother turned the Suburban toward home.

  In the cloud of engine smoke and burning smell of rubber, I stared at the mess in Uncle L. V.’s pasture. A mess I created. I stood there on the gravel measuring every deep rut and smashed clover bud. Mother and Waylon could’ve both been hurt. Badly. And L. V.’s neat farm was carved up in doughnut circles. He’d make me replant that field and nurse it until every single blade of grass grew back.

  Dad’s words about getting in a bad situation and not staying there and wallowing in it hit home. Things were more complicated than I ever imagined they could become. Still, all I needed was one more day. Less than twenty-four hours. Just one more day.

  I wanted to talk to Paradise, but I knew what he’d say too. “Wide-open. You gotta live wide-open.”

  I rode the four-wheeler home through the thicket to face whatever I had coming. I’d cover up what I had to. Wide-open would have to wait.

  31

  A SLICE OF TRUTH

  With all the steadiness and precision of a diamond cutter, Mother laid the sharp sawing blades of her electric knife right where the bread crust meets the soft white center. She severed it. Tossing the crust to the side.

  Lacey must’ve been working on her Pentecostal outfit because her hair was formed into a tidy, virginal bun, and she’d zipped herself into a long denim skirt that nearly covered her ankles. She’d run into the kitchen in a hurry. Except for her hot pink bra, Lacey was topless and almost breathless.

  “I told her she was nuts, but Mother swears she saw you making out with Waylon Slider.”

  I rolled my eyes. Reached down to pull off my boots. Mother was going to draw that one kiss into an entire relationship; I counted on it. The less I acted like I cared, the sooner I might be able to put it behind me. Regardless, I could deal with whatever punishment she’d lay down when I got back from Austin.

  “It was one kiss.” I tugged a boot off. “And she tried to kill him.”

  Mother stacked another tower of pimento cheese sandwiches. Hit the power button on the knife. The shrill whine filled the kitchen. “I’m not done with that boy either.” She drove the knife into the bread, cutting away the crusts. “I’m sure he thinks he can strum some on his guitar and girls will just start flinging their panties at him. Not my girls. No way.”

  I almost laughed. If I was sure of anything, it was that thought never occurred to Waylon, and I was no panty flinger.

  Mother stopped carving. She rested the knife and pressed both hands palms down on the table. She closed her eyes. “Paisley, I’m only going to ask you this one time. Did you sin with him?”

  “I don’t even know how to answer that.” I tugged off my other boot and sat both by the door. They’d be ready when I headed out in the morning.

  “Don’t smart off to me, Paisley.” Mother placed her perfectly carved finger sandwiches on a platter. “I know you’ve run off somewhere with him at least once. I went by L. V.’s. You weren’t there. What were you doing that you had to run off somewhere to do it?”

  “So instead of asking where I was the day you moved my drumsticks”—I wanted her to know that I knew she’d been there. She wasn’t spotless—“you thought you’d just catch me. You got what you were looking for.”

  Lacey picked up one of the sandwiches.

  Mother turned on her. “Don’t you act like you’re innocent either. I saw your car up there earlier in the week.”

  Lacey’s mouth fell open. “Paisley, did you steal my car to go see Waylon Slider?” She bit the little sandwich in half. Lacey obviously saw no need in both of us taking the heat.

  So I shouldered that lie too. “This has nothing to do with Lacey.”

  Mother’s voice went high and nasally. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Paisley.” She arranged the white bread sandwiches along with pumpernickel finger sandwiches so that they looked like a platter full of piano keys. “Sneaking around. Lying. With that go
sh-awful Waylon Slider.” Mother officially teared up. “Why can’t you girls be interested in some nice boys like”—she sniffled as she stacked—“those boys whose daddy owns the Ford dealership in Big Wells?”

  Lacey nearly choked on that suggestion. She coughed and coughed until she could pour a glass of water. All Mother knew about those boys was that they had money and community clout. In her mind, those two characteristics trumped farm boys any day of the week.

  Mother patted her eyes with a corner of her apron. “I want people looking up to you girls. Not down.”

  “Not that it matters, but it was one kiss.” I opened up. “I’m not interested in another one. But Waylon and I are friends. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Well, neither are you.” Mother powered up the electric knife again and went hard after another stack of sandwiches. “My prayer has been that you’d find your passion, find something you loved to do and could work at in school. Something that would get you out of Prosper County.” She slapped pimento cheese spread onto a slice of bread. “That’s my dumb luck for praying for you to find your passion.”

  Lacey cut her eyes at me. Without their usual embellishments of caked-on color, Lacey’s eyes looked as hollow as I felt.

  CAL’S LYRIC JOURNAL

  RURAL AND RESTLESS

  From the bridge that crosses Cypress Creek, you can watch the water run.

  That old creek lays low, runs deep

  But it can flow beyond its banks.

  It may be quiet now, but not for long. It’s rural and restless.

  The old courthouse darkens the Big Wells square, still I take my board to town.

  Airwalk down the steps, nose grind on the handrails

  Until the cops bust the ride

  Outsiders killing small-town time. We’re all rural and restless.

  I’ve known for a while this county can’t hold me, like it can’t hold Cypress Creek.

  One day I’ll pack my songs, my guitar.

  Consider myself blessed.

  I know where I’m from, taking that with me. I’m rural and restless.

  32

  WIDE-OPEN

  Darkness is its own kind of illuminator. Shades of gray, black, midnight blue stirred ghost-like in my room. I slipped into my favorite cutoffs, a tank, a hoodie. The moon, sneaking between the curtains, cast a haunting silver light on my dresser, my drumsticks, the ring my parents gave me. Mother actually thought I’d have sex with Waylon. That’s what she thought of me. She didn’t know me at all. I suppose I didn’t give her much to work with.

  I opened my bedroom door, stopping just before the hinge squeaked. The hall, lined with pageant pictures and pretty little-girl portraits of me and Lacey, even some of Dad in his baseball glory days, was as inviting as a cold black funeral car. And then there were the pictures of Mother: a twirler in a blue sequined leotard and white patent-leather go-go boots, the baseball star’s girl in a princess-cut prom dress that hid her waist. A few steps in, I stopped by Lacey’s room—her door ajar. My sister was curled into a ball somewhere under the mound of bedcovers. She’d draped her Pentecostal costume over a chair. The salon mirror reflected nothing but the opaque early morning and her hidden dream.

  My boots sat by the kitchen door. Right where I left them. I picked them up and turned around one last time. Tray after tray of music-note cookies covered the kitchen table. The piano-key finger sandwiches were somewhere in the fridge. Mother was ready to go. Ready to take Lacey to perform a lie. Believing one hundred percent in absolutely nothing.

  I turned the knob, almost waiting for someone to stop me. Dad would step out any minute. Or Mother.

  No one came.

  The path was wide-open.

  Leaving was easy.

  I opened the door. The chilly morning air sent goose bumps crawling up my legs. I waited, thinking that was it. They probably heard me.

  No one came.

  Dad’s baseball cap hung from a cabinet knob. He’d be up for coffee before long. I’d be gone.

  I shut the door behind me, stepped into my boots in the garage.

  The moonlight, although scarce and tucked behind the clouds, shed enough light for me to find my way across the pasture. I hiked through the almost-knee-high grass and over the groundsel-covered rolling hills. The darkness camouflaged the bright gold flower clusters and passed them off as dull yellow weeds. A ghostly mist floated in the distance, hovering over the creek and Moon Lake. The night sky seemed to stretch on forever and so did Prosper County. The hills swelled and plunged as far as I could see. Where one grove of bushy trees stopped, another started. When Mother went off about Prosper County, she talked like it had walls. This morning Prosper County had no boundaries. No end to the countryside in sight.

  Coming up on the deer run leading into the thicket between our place and Uncle L. V.’s, I missed the four-wheeler. The black trail snaked through the thicket, and I thought about running it. It’s easier to be fearless getting through the woods on a four-wheeler. On the other side, where the thicket opens to the pasture, L. V.’s hangar waited as did the boys, the band on the bridge.

  God turned up the morning volume. The sun was still below the horizon, but the dark morning had brightened to the color of new denim. The whistling of spring birds livened up the pasture. I could see our yellow house behind me. Still. Quiet. Not a light on.

  For what seemed like forever, I’d chased my dream to drum, to leave Prosper County, over the trail to the hangar, and now Austin and Texapalooza waited for me just on the other side. All I had to do was hit that trail one last time. One foot in front of the other. Everything had worked out just like I planned. Except for the nagging, creeping feeling that I was leaving something behind. I checked my back pocket. My drumsticks were there. What I left wasn’t something I could carry. It was the thing that carried me.

  I stopped.

  Pushing forward would’ve been easier.

  I took a few steps backward, away from the trail, through the high grass. The blades tickled my calves and the thicket shrank as I pulled back. I knew Paradise would understand. Levi too. Waylon and Cal maybe not.

  I turned for home. Wide-open was the only way to live.

  33

  TRUTH HURTS

  Mother stood motionless for a minute before the sack she was clutching fell from her arms. Lemons bounced and scattered across the kitchen floor. Mother grabbed her stomach. “My God, Paisley.” She closed her eyes, dropped her head, and muttered, “You’ve been out all night.”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant that as a question or an observation. She might’ve even meant it as a prayer.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said.

  “Then what is it?” Dad weaved his belt through the loops of his jeans. “Your boots are wet.”

  “The dew in the pasture.” I felt a fear welling with every boiling drag of the coffeemaker.

  Mother shrieked, “He just dumped you out in the pasture?”

  “No. No one dumped me anywhere.” My throat tightened. This was going all wrong. “I came back to tell you.” I looked at my dad, the scar on his left shoulder. He’d chased his dream wide-open with a stadium full of family and friends. They were there when he started and there when it ended. I was tired of going it alone.

  “I came back so you could take me to Austin.” I knew when I said that, it was a game changer. I didn’t know what would happen, but it couldn’t be worse than keeping everything in. I was letting it go and letting it out. Finally free. Like spinning in a circle on the pier at Moon Lake with Paradise.

  “Austin?” Mother sank onto a chair.

  Dad stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

  “There’s nothing between me and Waylon.” I took a deep breath. “Except his band.”

  Mother’s eyes hardened. She reached for Dad’s hand on her shoulder.

  No point in holding back. The sun was coming up, and we had a six-hour drive ahead of us.

  “I’m the drummer for the Way
lon Slider Band. We play”—I swallowed hard—“we play Texapalooza tonight in Austin. I was headed across the pasture to meet up with the band.”

  Mother glanced at the trays of music-note cookies, at the kitchen window, at the sink. She squeezed Dad’s hand. I think she’d convinced herself that she was deep in sleep and trying to climb out of a bad dream.

  I carried on with what I’d been thinking for weeks. “I don’t want to run away to get there. I want someone in this family to take me.”

  Dad grabbed a cup and waited as the coffeepot gurgled and spit. “For a drummer, Paisley,” he said, “you’ve got some off timing.”

  “A drummer?” Mother slapped both hands on the table, stood up. She was good and awake. “Drums! What do you know about drumming? A snare in the school band doesn’t count. Kitchen pans and wooden spoons don’t either. You’ve never had a professional lesson. If Waylon Slider told you how good you were at drums and how you could be in his band, he was buttering you up because he wanted something.” Mother bent down and snatched up the lemons. “From what I saw outside L. V.’s hangar, it looks like Waylon is well on his way to getting it.”

  Dad drank his coffee. He’d blow a cooling breath across the top then take a sip. Blow and sip. Blow and sip. One. Two. Three. Four. Just like I’d count the band in on my caja. If we could get there on time.

  “The only thing Waylon wants from me is to play the drums. We’ve been practicing in Uncle L. V.’s hangar. I use that old drum kit.”

  Mother palmed a lemon. I think she wanted to throw it at me. “I kissed Waylon so you’d not ask me why I was there.”

  Mother slammed the lemon down, jerked a cutting board and carving knife from a drawer. “Oh, what a tangled web you weave.” She slit the lemon in half, then cut it with lightning speed into perfect wedges, gritting her teeth. “When once you practice to deceive.”