Net of Jewels

by Ellen Gilchrist

“I’ll get you back. I’ll get you in. Donie’s going to let you in.” He reached for me and pulled me to him. He was surprisingly strong for someone so soft looking. He pulled me to him and held me there.

  “Stop it,” I said. “Leave me alone.”

  “No, we’re going to get that blouse off you.” He had his hands almost up my blouse. His hand had pulled my blouse out of my skirt and was now half on my skin and half on the elastic top of my girdle. I was fighting him. Fighting him the way I fought my brother Dudley. Deadly, ferocious, biting his hand, clawing his face, kicking, cursing. I was a deadly fighter, a consciousless biter from way back. I bit his knuckle down to the bone and he screamed and let go of me and I opened the car door and kicked off my shoes and pulled up my skirt and began to run. I ran down the dirt road in the direction of the highway. I heard the motor start behind me so I crossed a ditch and climbed a wooden fence and began to run across the pasture. I could see the lights of Big Momma’s in the distance. It was a beacon on a hill and I ran toward it. I had torn my skirt up the side by then. I pulled what was left up around my waist and ran through the pasture in my nylon hose. I ran without looking behind me. I ran until I was sure I was alone. Dark and alone with only the lights of Big Momma’s in the distance. I stopped and caught my breath. My heart was pounding in my chest, my adrenaline at its finest, most divine. The darkness was around me. And something else. Dark fragrant shapes. Moving nearer. Moving their heads up and down. Cows. I was in a cow pasture. I was surrounded by cows and more were drawing near me. Cows or bulls. Oh, God, it was the pits of hell, the end of time, the living dream. This time I would not wake up, this time I would die. “Get away from me,” I screamed. “Don’t come any nearer.” The shapes moved back from me. Slowly, deliberately, the tide of shapes seemed to move away, to make a path for me. They were not bulls. I would not die. I walked through the shapes, waving my hands to keep them away. I could smell them and hear their breath. I could feel their breath around me, fragrant and fine and rich with grass and earth and hay. Slowly my anxiety shifted from being gored to stepping in cow manure and I began to worry about my feet, which were cut and scratched from running on the stubble. Tetanus. I would get tetanus.

  A horn was honking on the highway. Stanley was calling me. “Rhoda, come back. Please come back. Tell me where you are. Call out where you are.”

  “I’m over here, for God’s sake. I’m in a bunch of cows. I’m going to kill you for this, Stanley. My brother will kill you dead.”

  He crossed the fence and came toward me. Then he was there and picked me up and carried me to the car and put me in the front seat and tucked a blanket around me and apologized and offered me some whiskey.

  “Just drive me home,” I said. “Just get me home so I can fix my feet.”

  “Please don’t tell on me, Rhoda. Say you won’t get me in any trouble.”

  “I’ll get my brother to kill you, Stanley. I’ll let Dudley come down here and beat you to death. So just go on and drive me home and don’t drink anything else. Just drive the goddamn car. No, wait a minute. I changed my mind. Turn around. Take me back to Big Momma’s. I’ll get May Garth to take me to a doctor. Turn the car around. I mean it. Do what I told you to.”

  “Oh, God. I don’t want to do that. I can’t go back up there.”

  “You’ll do anything I tell you. My brother’s going to come down here and beat you to death. You ask Shelby about my brother Dudley. Just ask him. Take me back to Big Momma’s right this very minute.”

  “You can’t go in there looking like that.”

  “Take me back there. I said to drive me there.” I was screaming at him now, scrunched up in the seat with my bleeding feet tucked up under me. “I’m probably getting lockjaw right this minute. My uncles are doctors. I know all about things like this. Turn this car around. Take me back up there.”

  “They won’t be there now. It’s probably closed.”

  “It is not closed. You take me up there or I’ll have you put in jail.”

  He turned the car around and went back up the hill to Big Momma’s. He parked the car and went inside and found May Garth. In a few minutes she came running out the door with Sheffield right behind her. They tore open the door to Stanley’s car and May Garth climbed inside and held me in her arms while Sheffield went across the parking lot and got his Chevrolet and drove it to where I was. Then he picked me up and put me in the front seat and May Garth got in beside me. All this time Stanley was standing by the open car door not saying a word. “I’m sorry,” he said finally as we were getting ready to drive off. “Don’t tell anyone else about this, Rhoda. Please don’t go spreading this around. It will only make us all look bad.”

  “Just shut up, Stanley. And you’re going to pay for this suit, remember that. It cost seventy-nine dollars. I’m going to get a tetanus shot. Get out of my way. Take your hands off this car.” I sank back into May Garth’s sturdy arms. Sheffield began to drive toward Tuscaloosa. “He’s just white trash,” May Garth said. “He comes from real trashy people.”

  “I want to go to the hospital,” I answered. “I want a tetanus shot.”

  “What are you going to do?” Sheffield asked. “Are you going to tell on him?”

  In the end I didn’t tell on him. It wasn’t done to tell on people in 1955. That is to say I didn’t tell on him to the grown people. I didn’t tell on him in the emergency ward of the Tuscaloosa General Hospital and I didn’t tell our housemother when May Garth and Sheffield finally got me back there. “I was frightened by a bunch of cows,” I told her. “We went out into a pasture to look at some things for a science report and these cows chased us and I lost my shoes.”

  “Where was this?” the housemother asked. “Where’s your date, Rhoda? Where’s the boy you checked out with?”

  “He had a flat tire,” May Garth put in. “So we brought her home. I’m taking her upstairs now, Sheffield. You stay here with Mrs. Clark.” May Garth held on to me as I hobbled up the stairs. They had cleaned out the cuts on my feet and bandaged them at the hospital but it hurt to walk. “You want me to stay here with you?” she asked, when we had arrived at my room and she had tucked me into my bed. “I’m so glad I was there, Rhoda. I think there’s a reason I was there tonight. I think we will always be friends and be there to help each other. The minute I met you I knew you were going to be my friend.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. She held my hand. She stroked me like a mother. “Oh, May Garth, I don’t know if I deserve a friend. I barely even came to see you when you had your appendix out.”

  “You came. Don’t you remember you came that night? You’ve been a friend to me, Rhoda. I think you’re the best friend I have on this campus.” She kept on patting my arm, looking down as if she couldn’t stand to meet my eyes. Couldn’t bear to think it might not be true that I liked her as much as she liked me. How lonely her life must have been in those years, I think now. “I might not be coming back next semester,” she said. “My dad may put me in a school in Washington, D.C., so I can be near him. Or he might send me to England or something. He came down to see about me last week. He’s really busy but he still has time to worry about me.”

  “I bet he loves you to death.” I turned my hand over and began to pat her. “Thanks again for saving me. Thanks for staying up so late.”

  “I guess I better go. Sheffield’s down there with Mrs. Clark. I guess she wants to get to bed.”

  “Goodnight, May Garth. You call me tomorrow, will you? Call and see how I’m doing.”

  “Sure. Maybe you can go somewhere with us tomorrow. If you’re feeling better.”

  “I might. Go on then. Save your cousin.” She moved her hand from under mine and stood up. Stood all the way up to her full height. Then she stooped and left the room.

  When she was gone I turned off my lamp and lay for a long time looking out the window at the moonlight. I didn’t deserve to have a friend. I was always turning into a Judas. Always denying people that I loved. I denied Charles William a
ll the time. I was always half ashamed to be with him, half afraid it might injure me when people found out what he did. Now I had denied May Garth. I had told Stanley two or three times that I barely knew her and didn’t like her. Yes, three times, just like Peter. Then in the end she saved me. It was disgusting. I just pretended to be wonderful. I wasn’t wonderful. I had killed a boy in a car wreck. I had killed Patricia Morgan’s only living son. That’s what came of making friends with me. I’ll do better, I decided. I’ll change the way I am. The next time a friend needs me, I’ll be there. The next time something scares me, like things Charles William does, I’ll face it down. I won’t be a coward to my friends. I won’t be a Judas. And I won’t tell on Stanley Mabry although I should. What a terrible dopey jerk he is. What a sloppy mess and he sure better pay me for my suit.

  A long time ago when I was happy, Bob Rosen held me in his arms outside a drive-in and laughed at everything I said and told me what to do, told me what the world meant and how to live in it and then we moved away. I wish “Moonglow with Martin” was on tonight. I wish I could send my mind across the miles to touch him. Somewhere, wherever you are, I’m thinking of you. And I still love you. I will love you until I die. I’m a mess right now, Roberto, but I won’t always be. Te amo, mio caro. Te amo, my one and only love. I’m going to get better. I’m going to grow and make you proud of me. And you will know it. You will know it even if you’re in a grave.

  After a long time I slept. After a long terrible time my body curled down into the position it had known inside of Ariane and took its rest.

  Of course Stanley never paid for the suit. Actually, I never heard from him again although I passed him several times on campus and we both looked away. The cuts on my feet healed in a week. Things heal on nineteen-year-old girls with the swiftness of divinity. If I were to envy the young for anything it would be for that. The way an injury can seal and cure itself almost overnight.

  My feet healed and my heart pumped its miraculous message to my cells and the days began to unfurl the flag of the future. Irise came by to deliver an invitation to Georgia Tech and somewhere in Atlanta a boy with green eyes and better genes than Stanley’s was getting ready to be there when my panties finally began to fall. Was waiting to help me fulfill my destiny or seal my fate or just plain get laid at last, however you like to phrase it, whatever you think it means.

  Deeper than the mass, Anna once called it, more profound and much, much older. That mysterious time was almost upon me. And something else to ponder, the strangeness of Charles William. Queer duck, my father called him. Oh, Charles William, my brothers said. The Waters boy, the men sighed and lifted their eyebrows. And yet, there was hardly a house I visited in Dunleith that had not been changed by his genius, a flagstone path by pear trees, a porch painted green with a French blue ceiling and white wicker furniture he collected and painted, a dining room with Chinese screens, recessed lighting he created before you could buy such a thing, freestanding lamps with rice paper shades, walls painted red. Paint covers a multitude of sins, he was fond of saying, and the metaphor could have been his life. He left beauty and charm everywhere he passed. Also, drunkenness and a strange apologetic darkness. You would have been careful to leave a teenage boy alone with him. Still, I had no other friends my own age who were deeply truly interested in literature and art. Perhaps if I had been allowed to stay at Vanderbilt I would have found them soon, but Daddy had closed that door. “Goddammit, Sister,” he kept saying when he called me on the phone. “Thank God you’re down there with some white people. This place is going crazy. It’s about to explode. I thank God every day I got you away from those liberals in Nashville. Are you all right? How’s your car running? Do you need any money?”

  Part Three

  THE PISCEAN ODYSSEY

  Ruled by the magical and mysterious Neptune,

  Pisceans operate on their own wavelength.

  Because Pisces is often considered the “lonely

  heart” sign, Pisceans are susceptible to illusions.

  They become either masters of their fate or life’s

  most unwilling servants. In the most extreme

  interpretation, Pisces is the sign of the purest

  spiritual expression and, conversely, that of the

  most degraded or lost soul. This sign is

  symbolized by two fish; one swimming upward,

  toward heaven, and the other heading down, into

  the depths of despair.

  Linda Goodman

  Chapter

  10

  After the night with Stanley I decided to settle down. I had had all the blind dates and sorority bullshit I could bear. Sorority meetings were held in a hot cramped attic room with everyone sworn to secrecy at the door. After we swore we sat around and talked about appointing people to committees and how to raise the grade-point average. Then we voted on things and planned the initiation ceremony.

  I had been going to meetings regularly ever since I moved into the house but finally one night I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Look here,” I said, getting up from my chair. “The best way to raise the grade-point average is to let me go downstairs and study. I’m behind in two subjects.”

  “You’re out of order,” the president said, looking around for help. No one ever asked to leave a meeting. The girls looked embarrassed.

  “I’m behind in biology lab. I need to work.”

  “Well, go on then. We’re almost through anyway. We’re almost to the prayer.”

  “Okay. I’m leaving.” I made my escape and went down to my room and found some change and bought a couple of Butterfinger candy bars out of a machine and tried to settle down to study. I worked on biology for a while, memorizing the classifications of animals. Then I decided to work on world history. I was writing a paper on the Great Ages of Man. “The great ages of man all began with political organization. There has to be a leader, whether he is a pharaoh, a king, a caesar or a pope. The problem comes in when the leader starts thinking he is God and can do whatever he likes. That’s why democracy was invented. If the leader has to be voted on by the people, he has to keep in touch with them and give them what they want.”

  “Rhoda.” It was Irise. I hadn’t seen much of her in the past few weeks as she belonged to a different sorority and didn’t go out much except to classes.

  “Irise. Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in so long. I have a thousand things to tell you.” I got up and went to the door and pulled her into the room.

  “Charles William said to tell you he’s got it all fixed up for Homecoming. He got you a date with a wonderful boy. You’re going to go, aren’t you? Are you still going to go with me?” She sat down on a corner of my bed. She was all dressed up in a green corduroy jumper and a soft white blouse with puffed sleeves. Her face smiled out from her short brown hair. I had forgotten how much I liked her, how much it brightened up a room to have Irise around.

  “God, I’m glad to see you. Everybody’s driving me crazy.”

  “Can you go? He wants us to call him tonight and talk to him about it.”

  “When is it?”

  “Weekend after next. Can you go? Will you go? He’s building the Wreck again, this thing they build out of old cars. His won last year. It was a mountain made of beer cans with a goat on top.”

  “God, yes, I’ll go. I’m dying to get away from here. I shouldn’t have moved in the house, Irise. They’re driving me crazy. I have to study in the middle of the night. So what’s his name, my wonderful date?”

  “His name’s Malcolm. Charles William sent me a picture to show you. Isn’t he cute? Charles William said he was a Greek god.” She produced a photograph of a young man with a crew cut that stood straight up on end and big features and a somber smile. I took it from her and stared down into the paper eyes. Paper and silver oxide, black and white and shadows, icon, omen, prophecy? Do the genes know what they are seeking? Do our ends seek our beginnings?

  “Don’t y
ou think he’s cute?”

  “I guess so. What’s wrong with his hair?”

  “He was Charles William’s roommate last year. Charles William says he’s a Greek god.”

  “Well, I want to go. You know I want to go.”

  “You have to buy an airline ticket. It costs twenty-six dollars.”

  “That’s okay. How old is this guy?”

  “The same as us. He’s a sophomore.”

  “He looks like a baby.”

  “I think that was taken last year. We can get the airline tickets at the airport. Oh, Rhoda, you can wear your green dress we bought at Helen’s.”

  “I hope it fits.” I got up from the bed and rummaged around in my crowded messy closet for the dress. Right before we had gone back to school in September Charles William and Irise and I had gone shopping. Under Charles William’s tutelage I had bought an emerald green satin dress cut down so low in the bosom my nipples almost showed. It had a bustle of green satin in the back and was so tight I could hardly zip it.

  “I think you’re going to like this boy,” Irise giggled again. “Charles William says you’re going to like him a lot.”

  Prophetic. Twelve days later on a Friday afternoon Irise and I boarded a Southern Airlines plane and flew from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta. The plane bobbed up and down in the clouds, gained and lost altitude without warning. Passengers clutched their airsickness bags, wrote mental wills, prayed to be forgiven, prayed to live. But I was too excited to be scared. I sat by Irise and thought about my luggage. I had three pieces of luggage and a hat box. In one suitcase was my green satin dress and some silver slippers and a pair of elbow-length white gloves and a Merry Widow and a girdle and some nylon hose. In another I had three sweaters, three skirts, three blouses, six pairs of underpants, three brassieres, four pairs of socks, some penny loafers, and a suit. I was carrying the third piece of luggage, a cosmetic kit with my cosmetics and a fitted jewelry case and a book. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. I took out the book and began reading it as the plane dropped fifty feet, then recovered, then dropped again. I tore off a piece of airsickness bag to mark a poem.