A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  I’ll miss Mathilda, too, and Emmett, of course, and my friends from high school. But I don’t think I’ll miss Bootsie. I’ll do my best not to think about her, because every time I do, it reminds me that I’m not good enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough to be loved.

  Jimmy loves me. He said so last month in the backseat of his daddy’s Bonneville. That’s why I’m going away with him. I’m not sure what love is, or how I feel about him, but as long as he loves me, we’ll be all right. I know it. Deep down, I really do.

  I’d better put out my cigarette and get walking. I told Jimmy to flash his lights once when he got to the end of the drive and then to stop. I haven’t seen his lights yet, but I can’t wait anymore. It seems like I’ve been waiting a whole lifetime for this, and one more minute seems like forever.

  I’m not so sure he’ll remember not to come on up to the house. Jimmy’s handsome and fun, but I don’t know how smart he is. He blew off half of a finger last Fourth of July because he wanted to see what it felt like to have a firecracker explode from his hand. He was high, but I still couldn’t think how high a person would have to be to forget to use their brain.

  Bootsie’s room is right in front of the house, her windows overlooking the front drive so she can spy on whoever’s coming. She keeps talking about how when I graduate from college and come back home, I’ll get that room and the old black bed. And she and Emmett will teach me all about cotton farming and keeping books and all those things I’ve never wanted to know about and still don’t.

  But I couldn’t tell her that any more than I could tell her that I didn’t want to go to college. It doesn’t matter now. She saw me packing and thought it was for college, where she’s supposed to be driving me tomorrow. I hope she won’t be too surprised when she finds my bed empty with a note on my pillow telling her I’m gone forever.

  I hear an engine, so I have to go. My future’s wide-open right now, and the only thing I know for sure is that I’ll be a long time gone from this place.

  Chapter 21

  Adelaide Walker Bodine

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1923

  Aunt Louise frowned as she examined my painted lips and rouged cheeks. Sarah Beth had forbidden me from appearing at her parents’ party without any color on my face, swearing I’d fade into the wallpaper if she didn’t intervene and loan me something from her makeup collection. I think it was more so that I wouldn’t embarrass her in front of her parents’ friends, who were important people and very fashionable, many who were traveling from the state capital of Jackson to attend.

  My aunt hovered around me with a handkerchief, waiting for the opportunity to swipe off at least some of the lipstick. “Adelaide, you have so much natural beauty. I don’t know why you’d want to hide it with all that paint.”

  I stared at my reflection in the mirror, at my reddish-blond hair that I’d been allowed to marcel, and the little hint of rouge on my cheeks that made my green eyes seem brighter. Or maybe it was the thought of dancing all night with John that made them sparkle. The bright lips made me seem older and sophisticated, and hopefully took people’s eyes off the deplorably low hem of my dress. Despite my pleadings, my hem stayed where Aunt Louise thought was proper—right above my ankles. I suppose I should have been happy that she wasn’t making me wear a corset and a hoop skirt.

  “Are you ready yet, cuz?” Willie asked, poking his head around the door and then whistling. His hair was parted on the side and slicked back so that his cowlick didn’t stick up at the back of his head. He wore a black dinner jacket with a white waistcoat and black bow tie, and I had to admit he looked handsome.

  “Woo-eee, Adelaide. You’re going to be the cat’s meow at the party tonight. Just please don’t tell Sarah Beth I said so.” He winked. “I heard they’ve set up a tent in the back garden for the younger folks, with our own dance floor and a Negro band playing a lot of new music. Sarah Beth said all the debs in Jackson are doing it, so of course Mrs. Heathman has to have a tent and a band, too.”

  He smiled, then checked his wristwatch that Sarah Beth had given him for his last birthday. She’d bought it at Peacock’s and John had helped her pick it out, selecting it for its quality and workmanship. Despite Sarah Beth’s flashy nature, she was impressed by those things that were more than just beauty, because, she’d explained, they weren’t so fleeting and temporary. The only exception was flowers, but she probably only said that because I was her best friend and the flowers in my garden were my pride and joy.

  “You ready?” I asked, turning around and feeling the beady fabric swish against my body. The dress was pale pink, or “blush,” as the saleslady kept reminding me, and it made my complexion glow.

  “I just . . .” Aunt Louise started to say, then stopped.

  “You just what?” I asked.

  She pressed her lips together in a soft smile. “I just wish your mother were here to see you. She’d be very proud.”

  I looked down at the silver-backed brush-and-comb set that had belonged to my mother, and thought about the woman I’d barely known because she hadn’t given me the opportunity. Would she have been proud of me? I had no way of knowing, and could only wish that it didn’t matter so much.

  “Come on, Adelaide.” Willie almost twitched with excitement. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

  I stood and kissed Aunt Louise on her cheek, trying not to notice her moist eyes. I practically had to run after Willie down the stairs, neither one of us heeding Aunt Louise’s pleas to act like a lady and gentleman. Uncle Joe waited by the door, a serious expression on his face, and both my cousin and I braced ourselves for the inevitable lecture.

  “Don’t forget how you were raised, and how we don’t tolerate alcohol or wild behavior in this household. I expect you to behave accordingly.” Although he was speaking to both of us, his eyes were on Willie. I wondered how much he knew about Willie’s exploits on his visits home from Ole Miss.

  “Yes, Uncle Joe,” I said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his sun-roughened cheek. The fact that my aunt and uncle had not received an invitation had gone unremarked, although nobody was surprised. Sarah Beth had been allowed to make her own guest list, which was how Willie and I ended up attending. Aunt Louise and Uncle Joe didn’t run in the same social circles as the Heathmans, and I didn’t think that bothered them overly much.

  Belatedly remembering his manners, Willie helped me into my plain and serviceable wool coat, then held his arm out to me. As he escorted me to the car, I thought of Sarah Beth’s fur coat. In the weeks since I’d left it at the jewelry store, I hadn’t seen her, which was fine, because even though I’d reminded John often, he kept forgetting to bring it to me, and I hadn’t made another trip into town. I imagined that John must have stashed it in the back room and just kept forgetting about it. Or maybe he’d given it to Sarah Beth directly, since I knew she’d been to see him about repairing the strand of pearls that had broken the night we’d brought her home. Sarah Beth hadn’t asked about her coat, which was typical of how careless she was about her things, but I’d feel better knowing I’d returned it.

  Willie opened the passenger door of his car, but before I could get in I watched his eyes first widen in surprise, then furtively glance at me as he reached in and grabbed what looked like a pile of white sheets wadded on the seat.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I brought home some laundry and left it in the car.” He tightened the sheets into a large white ball, then shoved them on the floor of the rear seat.

  He kept giving me funny glances and I couldn’t understand why, but as I sat down, I noticed the lingering smell of wood smoke.

  Willie hummed to himself on the entire drive, his hands tapping on the steering wheel, but I didn’t mind. I was too busy with images of John and the anticipation of spending an evening dancing with him. I’d even decided to have a drink or two. I wouldn’t get zozzled lik
e Sarah Beth liked to, but enough that I could finally understand what all the excitement was about. And show John that I wasn’t a little girl.

  It had been cold enough to freeze the water in the birdbath in my garden, but we’d had a slight thaw in the last few days that brought the temperature over the freezing mark, just in time for the Heathmans’ party. It would have been too cold in the tent—at least for the band members, if not for the dancers—so of course the weather obliged the Heathmans. Still, I wished I had Sarah Beth’s fur coat, since the air would be cold on my sleeveless arms regardless of the temperature.

  As we pulled into the large circular drive where valets were taking keys and parking cars, we were met by blinking lights sprinkled all through the trees, and windows hung with wreaths mimicking the huge one that decorated the spot over the massive front door. Cars were parked along the drive and on the lawn, and a babble of voices drifted through the open French doors on the first level, where I could see that a crowd had already gathered.

  As Willie led me inside, I was caught up in the mixed scents of perfumes and cigarette smoke that swirled above the partygoers, who were swaying back and forth as if already dancing. Pine boughs mixed with magnolia leaves were festooned on all the fireplace mantels and climbing their way around the banister of the curving staircase.

  Bertha, wearing a starched white hat and apron over a black dress, stepped back to allow us into the foyer, where there was already a crush of people. I waited while another servant took my coat, and then my gaze was caught by the sight of a small woman dressed just like Bertha approaching us with a silver tray filled with long glasses of a golden-colored drink.

  Willie’s back was to us, greeting a friend, and I smiled when I recognized her. “Mathilda! It’s good to see you again.”

  She didn’t return my smile. Instead, after quickly glancing around us, she looked down at the tray as if addressing it and said very quietly, “It be better if you don’ talk to me, Miss Adelaide. Better for both of us.”

  Before I could ask her what she meant, Willie turned around and spotted the drinks. Without even a glance in Mathilda’s direction, he picked up two glasses and handed one to me. “Your first glass of champagne! Just promise me it won’t be your last. It’s hard living with a saint, cuz.”

  I took the glass, but when I turned to thank Mathilda, she’d already disappeared into the crowd, her white cap standing out as it bobbed through the brightly colored crowd like a buoy on the water.

  Willie and I turned at the sound of a squeal coming from the staircase, where we spotted Sarah Beth in a confection of feathers and fringe and a hemline that showed her knees—something Aunt Louise would definitely not have approved of.

  Her hair, in marcelled waves identical to mine, shone in the lamp and candlelight like the dark fur of a mink, a dramatic backdrop for the diamonds in her hair, and at her neck and throat. My hand moved absently to my neck, where I wore Aunt Louise’s good set of pearls that I had thought made me look glamorous and sophisticated. Looking at Sarah Beth, I felt like a country wife going to church in her Sunday best.

  She raced down the stairs and, ignoring Willie—part of her “strategy,” as she called it—flung her thin arms around me. “I thought you would never get here. It’s so dreadfully dull here with all these old folks, and I’ve been dying of boredom waiting for you so we can go have a little fun. And I told Mother that we didn’t need chaperones in the tent, because it’s so old-fashioned, and besides, she and Daddy and all the other adults will be just right here, so we can’t get into too much trouble.” She fluttered her long eyelashes up to Willie. “You can come, too,” she said with a sultry smile.

  Willie downed his glass of champagne in quick swallows, two spots of color flaming high on his cheeks. “I just might,” he said, his words tight. Mathilda walked by again and Willie plopped his empty glass on the tray and took two more. He eyed my untouched glass. “You’d better hurry up or I might have to drink yours, too.”

  I took a gulp, not wanting to seem like a first-timer and just sip it. The bubbles shot down my throat and then up to my nose, stinging my eyes and making me cough. To hide my embarrassment, I quickly took another gulp.

  With a furtive look at her parents, who were busy greeting guests at the door, Sarah Beth took her own glass of champagne before grabbing Willie’s elbow, causing the liquid in the two glasses he was holding to splash perilously close to the edge. “Come on—there’s more juice out in the tent.”

  She began to lead the way toward the back of the house, but I hesitated, looking for Mathilda to discard my now-empty glass. Instead, a hand reached around from behind me and grabbed the glass. I opened my mouth in surprise, then smiled when I saw John.

  He wore a black dinner jacket like Willie, but while Willie appeared to be a young man dressed up to go to a party, shifting his arms self-consciously to make the jacket fit better, John looked like a man who wore elegant evening wear all the time. His broad shoulders and tall and lean body were made for tailored clothing, and for a moment I thought he should be in the pictures. But then he wouldn’t be mine.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” he whispered in my ear, sneaking in a quick kiss to my temple so nobody would notice.

  “John,” I said, breathless. There was something about him that always made me feel like the air had been snatched out of my lungs.

  “I’m steamed at you, you know,” he said, trying to strike a serious tone.

  His sparkling eyes told me he was joking. But I pouted anyway, like Sarah Beth had taught me, hoping he’d notice my red lips. “Why? What did I do?”

  “You had your first drink without me.” He threaded his fingers in mine. “Come on. The least you can do is have your second drink with me.”

  I pulled back, making him glance at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Only on one condition,” I demanded, feeling like the bubbles in the champagne had absorbed any shyness.

  His eyes brightened as he stared back at me, and all the sights and the sounds of the party floated up to the ceiling with the cigarette smoke. “What’s that?”

  “That you dance with me, and only me.”

  “Deal,” he said, grinning as he pulled my hand and led me the way Sarah Beth and Willie had gone.

  A full moon I hadn’t noticed before hung high in the sky, creating long shadows across the lawn and illuminating the giant white tent that appeared to be the moon’s reflection in the dark sky of grass. Our breaths were expelled in giant cotton bolls of air that collided on their way up to heaven. I felt giddy with the feel of John’s hand in mine and the moon above and our whole lives in front of us. I tugged on his hand to get him to stop. “Kiss me,” I demanded.

  He didn’t ask why. He simply took me in his arms and did as I’d asked, softly at first and then with a passion that I thought only existed in the novels I borrowed from Mrs. Heathman or on the screen in the picture shows. As John moved his lips over mine, I could only think, It’s real! It’s real! It was like I’d discovered a secret that was all my own, not to be shared with any other soul except for John.

  He finally pulled away, both of us breathing as if we’d run around the house three times. “Holy smokes,” he said, his fingers trembling on my shoulders, his body leaning into me like he would fall down if I backed up. “I figure it’s best if we both stop before I forget how.”

  John lifted his hands and stepped back, looking at me like he’d never seen a girl before. “You do things to me, Adelaide Bodine. I don’t think I could imagine the rest of my life without you.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” I said, seeing Aunt Louise’s disapproving look at my forwardness. I shivered in my sleeveless dress. I hadn’t even been aware that I was cold.

  “It’ll be warmer in the tent, but I don’t want you to catch pneumonia before we get there.” He shrugged out of his jacket and placed it over my shoulders. “Come on,” he said,
putting his arm around me and leading us toward the tent.

  “I wish I had Sarah Beth’s fur coat,” I said. “I was hoping you’d bring it tonight.”

  It took him a moment to respond. “I don’t have it.”

  “What do you mean? I left it in your store, and you keep telling me that you’ve been meaning to bring it by.”

  A tic started in his jaw. “I’m sorry. Angelo Berlini has it,” John said, his clipped words and harsh tone unfamiliar.

  I stopped to look up at him. “He has it? Sarah Beth is going to kill me when she finds out. She’s got more than one, but I know she’ll want it back.”

  “That might be a problem. I don’t expect to see him for a while.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would you let him just take it?”

  “I thought it was his. When he left he reached down and picked it up. I thought he’d put it there when he entered the store. I didn’t realize you’d brought it in until you started asking about it. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get it back.”

  “Can you telephone him and ask him to return it?”

  John stopped walking and faced me, his hands in mine. “He’s not somebody I can just call, Adelaide. And he’s not somebody I want you to have anything to do with. You’ve never asked, but that’s why I needed you to leave so quickly that day. I don’t want him to taint you. It’s just best to forget about the coat. Knowing Sarah Beth, she’s already forgotten all about it.”