The Book of Peach

by Penelope Stokes J.

  His daddy never knew that his life insurance ran out the minute he got fired. Or that it didn’t cover suicide.

  The day after Jay-Jay left, I went back to school. Everybody was talking about it, and everybody knew I was Jay-Jay’s friend. They came to me for the gory details: Had I seen the body? Was there blood everywhere? Who found the corpse? Was it Jay-Jay?

  They circled like a pack of hounds scenting blood. Snarling, snapping, closing in.

  “Leave her alone.”

  The voice, calm and quiet and assured, silenced the mob as if they’d all been struck dumb on the spot. Boone Atkins faced them down, all of them. Shut them up and scattered them like chaff to the winds. Took my hand and found a deserted classroom, where we skipped third period and sat for over an hour—just sitting, saying nothing. When I cried he held my hand but didn’t try to talk me out of feeling sad.

  With Boone, I didn’t have to be anything special. Didn’t have to put on an act or play the beauty queen or stifle my tears because they’d make my eyes all bloodshot and my nose runny.

  I could just be myself.

  I don’t think I ever thanked him for that gift.

  13

  There were other gifts from Boone as well.

  No one would ever take Jay-Jay’s place in my life. But suddenly Boone Atkins was there, appearing out of thin air like an illusionist, expanding to fill at least some of the empty space.

  I make it sound as if Jay-Jay was the one who died. That’s how it felt, even though I got the occasional letter from him trying to convince me how well he was doing. He and his mama arrived in Oklahoma just as the oil boom of the eighties was getting off the ground.

  He quit school, went to work with his uncle on the rigs, made a little money, and invested it ten years later in a small business. A cousin who went to school at Stanford knew a couple of guys working on a computer program they called BackRub.

  Later known as Google.

  Jay-Jay did all right for himself, at least in terms of material success. But somehow it all seemed rather sad to me. He was so smart, and so kind, and so compassionate, but he never went back to finish his education. And I wonder how much of the kindness was kicked out of him in the rough world of wildcatting.

  I suspect something of Jay-Jay did die with his father that night. His hope, perhaps. His optimism. His dreams.

  You’da thought Mama would be glad to see Jay-Jay go. She never met him face-to-face, but she heard me talk about him now and again, and I knew without even bothering to ask that Jay-Jay Dickens was not “our kind of people.”

  The problem was, neither was Boone. He came from a nice family, but that didn’t matter to Mama. She didn’t care a lick that he was handsome and polite and smart and treated others with respect. His folks didn’t have much in the way of money, but that wasn’t the primary issue. He was the subject of gossip, and that alone was enough for Mama.

  “He’s not right,” she said every time I raised the issue.

  “But, Mama—”

  “Don’t ‘but, Mama’ me,” she said. “Trust me, Priscilla, the boy’s not right.”

  “You’ve never even met him!”

  “As long as you live under my roof, young lady, you will abide by my wishes.”

  Lord, if I’d heard that sentence once, I’d heard it a thousand times. She didn’t see me mocking her, mimicking the words behind her back, and it was a good thing, too. It might’ve been the last lip sync of my short but remarkable life.

  Dating.

  The male of the species tends to view this ritual as a hunt—stalking the elusive prey, cutting out the best and most beautiful of the herd, narrowing down the field, and then, by superior wit and cunning, following at a distance until the chosen one steps daintily into the net. But for a Southern girl being schooled toward Southern Lady-hood, dating is an extended shopping trip where all manner of potential mates are tried on for compatible color, fit, style, and size.

  After my mother gave me “the talk,” my father—who usually stayed out the way and left my education in Mama’s capable hands—came forward to add one bit of wisdom to the mix. “Peach, honey,” he said, “I would never advise a daughter of mine to marry for money. But remember, it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is to give your heart to a pauper.”

  My mother clarified Daddy’s advice with a metaphor of her own: “If you’re looking for a designer dress, Priscilla, you don’t shop at Kmart.”

  I understood what was expected of me. As much as it galled my fifteen-year-old soul, I accepted an invitation to attend the sophomore class dance with William Robeson McKenna III, the eldest son of my father’s law partner. We were to double-date with Sarah Thornton and her boyfriend, Walter Stubblefield.

  I had known Sarah, of course, since we were in elementary school, and I didn’t like her any better by this point than I had when she bullied Dorrie Meacham on the playground in first grade. She was still a bully, although a much more refined and elegant bully, but she was the daughter of one of Daddy’s richest clients, so I had to endure her company more often than I would have liked—which was never.

  Walter, who was sixteen and had both a driver’s license and a brand-new convertible, thought he was hot stuff. At school Sarah hung on him as if she were sliding off the deck of the Titanic and he was her only lifeline. Perhaps he was. Sarah, after all, provided living proof of the great high school dichotomy, that the most popular girl in school—that is, the one who ends up being cheerleader, homecoming queen, and most sought-after prom date—is often the least liked person in three counties.

  I had two viable offers for my first date—not bad, considering that I was known as the Pageant Princess, and in terms of approachability might as well have been a six-foot-four African supermodel. Most boys were too terrified to come within spitting distance.

  I was also too smart for my own good.

  Southern girls learn early that if they’re bright, they’d better put their candle under a bushel, and fast. Boys aren’t attracted to intelligent girls, Mother told me, but by the time she got around to imparting this gem of wisdom, it was too late. I knew better. What boys weren’t attracted to was girls who intimidated them. They wanted to feel superior, even if they had to get the sensation under false pretenses. And of course a well-trained young Southern Lady let them have their illusion of supremacy and used it to her own advantage.

  Besides all that, my friends weren’t “the right kind of people.” Sarah once warned me, in that snotty, holier-than-thou tone of hers, that I’d better dump the trash if I expected to be taken seriously.

  If truth be told, I would have rather gone to the dance with Boone, but given that impossibility, I chose the lesser of two evils. Robbie McKenna was at least good-looking and had nice eyes, even if he was a wuss. The other offer had come from Marshall Threadgood, left tackle on the football team. Sarah had encouraged me to accept Marsh’s grunted, monosyllabic invitation: “Want ta go ta the dance wit me?” Marsh was a rising star, she said; if I had a jock boyfriend I’d be a shoo-in for cheerleader next season.

  But Marsh sat in the back row of my sophomore lit class, giving me the unfortunate opportunity to experience firsthand his lascivious perspective on selected literary giants, notably Shakespeare: “Love poems to a man, huh? I could teach him a thing or two about where to stick it.” Marshall Threadgood’s athletic star might have been in its ascendancy, but his brains were located at a significantly lower altitude.

  Robbie McKenna, then, was the only sensible alternative—at least if I had any intention of preserving both my chastity and my sanity.

  That first date set the tone for years to come.

  I had chosen Robbie, whose birth and heritage should have made him a custom fit, and whose genteel manner should have been my protection. But I hadn’t counted on Marshall Threadgood making obscene gestures in my direction and then picking a fight with Robbie on the dance floor. Poor Robbie tried to defend my honor, but he just didn’t ha
ve the right equipment. He folded under the pressure, stepped into a right hook, and went down like a sack of black-eyed peas.

  Marsh was promptly ejected from the premises, but not before the damage had been done. The paramedics came and hustled Robbie off to the emergency room to have his broken jaw wired. Sarah went to pieces and begged Walter to take her home. And as the sirens faded off into the distant night, I felt a gentle tug at my elbow.

  I turned. There stood Boone Atkins, resplendent in a brand-new shiny blue suit, his gentle eyes looking me up and down.

  “May I have this dance, Miss Rondell?” he asked with a low laugh. “It seems your escort has been . . . ah, temporarily incapacitated.”

  I took Boone’s hand and followed him onto the floor. In the dim light of the Japanese lanterns strung around the gymnasium, I doubt anyone even noticed the Kmart tag that hung from a string under the arm-pit of his suit. I pulled it off and stuck it in my purse.

  Mama was waiting at the door when Boone brought me home in his father’s ten-year-old Chevrolet. Sarah’s daddy had called, she said, and told them what had happened. How horrible it must have been for me, and on my first date, at that.

  “I had a very nice time,” I said, letting go of Boone’s hand. “Mother, I don’t believe you’ve met Boone Atkins. He was kind enough to bring me home.”

  “Thank you, young man, for looking after my daughter.” Mother nodded formally, that icy fixed smile spreading across her lips. Her eyes traveled up to Boone’s face and back down again, taking in the horrible shiny suit. But I knew she wasn’t thinking about his wardrobe.

  “So that’s him, is it?” Mama asked scornfully as soon as the door closed behind him. “Certainly not one of our kind of people.”

  “He’s my kind of person, Mother,” I said. “He’s a gentleman.” With that, I left her standing in the middle of the parlor while I went to my bedroom and shut the door.

  Tomorrow, no doubt, I would catch hell for associating with the likes of Boone Atkins. Tomorrow I would get a scathing lecture about a Southern Lady’s responsibility for maintaining the appearance of propriety. Tomorrow things would be back to normal.

  Still, it felt freeing, no matter what the outcome, to be a little more at home in my own skin, to give myself an inch or two more space to move around in. I took off my dress and hung it on the door, then emptied my purse to find the tag from Boone’s precious suit. Blue Light Special—on sale, $21.95.

  All through my dating years, and long after I had married Robert and left Chulahatchie, I kept that sale tag. It was my ticket to a tender memory, a reminder that not everything of value comes from Neiman Marcus.

  14

  “Mind if I join you?” Boone asked.

  I hadn’t even heard him come over, I’d been so absorbed in writing. I shut my journal and looked up at him. He was smiling.

  “Sure,” I said. An unnecessary invitation, as he had already slid into the other side of the booth.

  The big black man called Scratch brought more coffee and took a long time pouring it. He obviously found something amusing in the situation, because he kept looking back and forth from me to Boone, and grinning.

  “What’s with him?” I said when he’d gone back to the kitchen.

  Boone chuckled. “He likes you.”

  “There’s something different about him.”

  “What do you mean, different?”

  I wasn’t really sure what I meant. “It’s just a feeling. Like he’s hiding something.”

  No, that wasn’t quite right.

  “I don’t mean hiding, exactly. Nothing malevolent. I just get the sense that there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  “There’s more to everybody than meets the eye,” Boone said.

  He let the statement hang out there for a minute or two, gaining heft in the silence. “Take you, for instance.”

  “What about me?”

  “Ah, now that’s the great mystery.”

  I tried to laugh it off. “There’s nothing mysterious about me.”

  “Oh, but there is,” Boone said. “All the questions a good reporter might ask: Who has Peach Rondell become in the past twenty-some years? What does she write in that journal of hers? Where is that husband of hers, the college professor? Why does she look so sad all the time?”

  He gave a self-deprecating shrug and smiled that drop-dead gorgeous smile of his, the smile that could make anybody forgive him anything, even sticking his handsome nose into someone else’s personal business.

  “You forgot when,” I said.

  “Ah, so I did.” He rubbed the crease between his eyebrows as if deep in thought. “I’ve got it. When is Peach going to open up and trust someone to be her friend?”

  I searched my brain for a lighthearted and witty comeback, but couldn’t find one, and when it comes to humor, timing is everything. Besides, my throat had clogged up with emotion. Without warning I felt myself overtaken by a wave of garrulousness, and I began to tell Boone Atkins things I hadn’t even told my therapist.

  “When I left Chulahatchie years ago,” I said, “I swore to myself I’d never return. I’d had enough of Mama’s control and manipulation. I came back once or twice for a brief visit, just because I couldn’t bear to punish Daddy for Mama’s browbeating, but I always left beaten to a bloody pulp—at least emotionally speaking. Nothing was ever good enough to please Mama. I wasn’t good enough.”

  I paused and chanced a look up at Boone’s face. He was listening intently and nodded for me to continue.

  “Anyway, I lost touch with everybody I knew growing up.” I paused, rethinking the statement. “No, that’s not right. I deliberately cut off ties with everybody. I didn’t want to be reminded of Chulahatchie, and my childhood, and the fact that I once had been the Bean Queen and Miss Ole Miss.”

  Boone chuckled as if he understood perfectly and took a sip of his coffee.

  “So when Daddy died, and I came back for the funeral, I was a virtual stranger in my own hometown. I didn’t remember anybody who showed up at the service and didn’t particularly want to make myself remember. I just flat-out didn’t care. I told my sister, Melanie, that the next time I set foot in Mississippi, it would be to settle Mama’s estate. I didn’t count on—”

  I stopped. How could I tell him the truth about Robert’s rejection, and starting over, and my own sense of despair and worthlessness?

  He mistook my hesitation for something else. “You must miss him.”

  Something painful twisted in my gut, like a joint turned the wrong way or the electric shock of a nerve pain. Without thinking twice, I blurted out the truth:

  “I don’t miss Robert,” I said. “I miss feeling loved.”

  Boone gave me the tenderest look imaginable, and when he spoke, his voice was low, quiet, almost a whisper. “I was talking about your father,” he said.

  God, how stupid could I be? With one flagrant Freudian slip, I’d revealed far too much, and now I felt open and exposed as a gutted deer.

  But Boone didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward and reached across the table, almost, but not quite, touching my hand. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!” I said with more passion and volume than I had intended. I lowered my voice to a hiss. “It’s not okay that my husband left me for someone else and that I have no job and no source of income and no place to go. It’s not okay that I’ve had to come back to ‘visit’ my mother—and yes, put it in quotation marks, because God only knows how long the visit will last before I can get back on my feet and get out of here. It’s not okay that my daddy is dead and buried and no longer around when I need him. It’s not okay that my life sucks and that the only person who has showed me any compassion at all was another woman’s husband, and even he ended up leaving me to go back to her in the end.”

  Boone waited while I ground down to a stuttering halt.

  “You must think I’m awful,” I said.

  “I don’t think anything of the sort.”
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br />   He pulled a wad of paper napkins out of the holder and pressed them into my hand then waited while I blew my nose.

  “I think you’ve been hurt, and life’s been difficult lately, and you don’t quite know how to handle it,” he said. “Chulahatchie might seem like it’s still slogging through the Dark Ages, but some of us are fairly enlightened.” He gave a quiet little laugh. “If you’ll let us, I think you’ll find some folks here who would support you.”

  I let the words settle and sat in silence while they echoed around inside my head. I felt strange and warm and a little frightened all at once. I’d never known this kind of acceptance, not even with Robert when we were married. And even though it came as a welcome respite, it also brought some anxiety and apprehension. If I didn’t understand what I’d done to deserve it, how could I possibly know what I might do to lose it?

  I tried not to think about the glass half empty. My old fool of a shrink was always talking to me about negative energy and karma and finding my center and living with an open hand. Little did he know that with Mama, if you opened your hand half an inch, whatever you had in it was going to get snatched away.

  It wasn’t exactly an encouraging metaphor, but God help me, it was true.

  “So what do you write in that book of yours?” Boone asked.

  “Just stuff,” I said. “Thoughts. Memories. Ideas. When I first came back to Chulahatchie, I was sure I’d died and landed in the third circle of hell. But I’ve been amazed at how much I remembered that I thought I’d forgotten. I’m learning a lot about myself, gaining insight.”

  “If your insight about Scratch is an example, you’ve also got pretty good instincts about others,” Boone said. “A long time ago, I remember, you said you wanted to write fiction. Maybe this is a good time to start. At the very least you’ll find a lot of characters here. Maybe coming back to Chulahatchie is a blessing in disguise.”

  “I don’t know about a blessing,” I said, “but it’s one heckuva good disguise.”