The Final Farewell

by Patricia Wiles

  I stood up and carefully removed the corsage from its plastic box. “I hope you like this. Mom helped me pick it out. I tried to get something in school colors that would still match your outfit.”

  “I’ll help you pin it on,” Sister Carter said to Dani. She took the corsage and pinned it to Dani’s lapel. “There. Isn’t that cute?” The corsage was an orange mum that had been forced into an oval shape, with a piece of black pipe cleaner across the top to make it resemble a football.

  “Gimme a K, gimme an I, gimme an S, S, S,” Dylan sang as Dani’s parents snapped a photo of us. Derek cackled beside him.

  Dani scowled. “Cut it out, Doofus.”

  President Carter shushed the boys. “I want you home by midnight, Dani. Call if you’re going to be late.” Then he turned to me. “I trust you to bring her home at the appropriate time.”

  Why was I nervous all of a sudden? “I’ve got a cell phone. I’ll call if there’s a problem.”

  Dani dragged me to the door. “We’ll be fine. See you at midnight.”

  I held the door for Dani and she climbed in the truck. When I got in, I reached over and wiggled her seat belt buckle.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Checking to make sure you’re buckled in. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Dani pushed my hand away. “Good grief, Kevin. I don’t need you to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”

  Embarrassed, I buckled up and started the truck. “You want to go to the Cow Palace and get a burger or something before the game?”

  “No, let’s go now—I want to get a good seat.”

  “I didn’t know you were interested in football.”

  “Guess I’ve got school spirit.” Dani made cheerleader motions with her arms. “Go, go, go Armadillos!”

  I laughed. “I’ll buy you a corn dog at the concession stand then.”

  “How about two? I’m starving.”

  Dani chatted all the way to the athletic complex. She talked about her classes, about the colleges she planned to apply to, and about her job at the soda fountain. It was just like old times, like when we were in junior high. I didn’t want the ride to end.

  At the stadium, Dani insisted we sit as close to the field as possible. I was sure we’d have a hard time finding a seat since the game was about to start. But we made our way to the front row and found a couple of empty spots close to the thirty-yard line on the Sherman County side.

  I didn’t care for football, but it was hard not to get absorbed into the energy of the crowd. I bought Dani a pair of pom-poms and a banner for myself so we could cheer along with the other Sherman County fans.

  Hunter was out on the field, doing what quarterbacks do—being the hero. He made a pass—the crowd roared. He ran for a first down—the cheerleaders went wild. He scored a touchdown, then another, then another—and soon the pep band was drowned out by the yells of the fans in the stands.

  I had to admit, Hunter was a great football player. When the game was over, Sherman County had humiliated the competition 36 to 0.

  Dani and I left the stadium and made our way to the dimly lit gym for the homecoming dance. The music thumped so hard against the brick walls that I thought I could see the mortar cracking.

  “Want some soda?”

  “No.” Dani seemed afraid to take her gaze away from one of the side doors—the one that led to the boys’ locker room.

  A gang of girls gathered around Dani, and for fifteen minutes they compared outfits and gossiped about everybody else’s. It was one of the lamest conversations I’d ever heard.

  When I couldn’t take any more, I tapped Dani on the shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want some soda?”

  Dani thought for a second. “Maybe a diet soda.”

  “Be right back.”

  There were two self-serve soft drink machines, one on each side of the refreshment table. I poured Dani a diet soda and was contemplating whether I should get some cake when the gym exploded with applause.

  The door to the boys’ locker room had opened.

  The pep band began to play “Our Boys Will Shine Tonight.”

  Then, like a herd of orange buffalos, the Sherman County football team thundered into the gym. The players ran a lap around the perimeter of the gym, beating their chests and doing Tarzan yells. The crowd cheered as each player’s name blasted through the PA system.

  All the players, that is, but one.

  The next thing I knew, there was an anticipatory drum roll, followed by the melodramatic announcer: “And noooooow, tonight’s mooooost vaaaaaaluable player—”

  All heads turned to the locker room doors.

  “Huuuuuunterrrrr Rockwell!”

  Hunter burst through the doors. The roar from the crowd was deafening. The jocks gave him high fives as he zoomed past. The girls screamed like he was a rock star.

  Where was Dani? I abandoned the cake and pushed my way through the swarm. I stood on my tiptoes and stretched my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the crowd.

  When I saw her, my heart sank to the soles of my freshly polished shoes. She had followed the rest of Hunter’s groupies to the center of the gym. When I finally caught up with her, I was sweaty and the ice in her drink had almost melted.

  I handed her the cup. “Sorry I took so long. It was hard to get through all the commotion.”

  “Forget it,” Dani said. There was a hint of annoyance in her voice. She tugged at the sleeve of my jacket. “Come on. If we don’t hurry we’ll never get through!” She dragged me through the crowd until we reached the spot where Hunter stood. He was surrounded by the girls Dani had gossiped with earlier.

  “What are you doing?” I broke free from her desperate grip. “It’s too crowded here.”

  “Hunter played a great game tonight. Don’t you want to congratulate him?”

  “Not especially.”

  “It’ll be rude if we don’t.”

  All around us, people were jostling to get to the Most Valuable Player. Someone bumped my arm, and Dani’s soda spilled all over the front of my suit. I let the cup fall to the floor and peeled off my sweaty, soda-stained jacket. “Let’s get out of here. It’s hot, and I’m getting claustrophobic.”

  “I won’t leave until I talk to Hunter,” Dani said firmly. She took off her jacket too, revealing the strapless top she had on underneath. She threw the jacket at me. “Hold this. I’ll be back.” She dove into the writhing crowd and disappeared.

  I fought my way toward the bleachers, and when I found an empty spot on the front row, I sat down and waited for Dani to come back.

  I waited.

  I waited some more. Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour.

  After an hour and fifteen minutes, I realized I had become invisible. People walked by without speaking. They stood in front of me and had conversations as if they didn’t know I was there. Some walked up and dumped their trash onto the chair right next to me without even acknowledging my presence.

  Dani’s corsage was in bad shape. The mum stem had snapped and the head was droopy. The pipe-cleaner laces had fallen off. Some of the petals were missing. I shifted Dani’s jacket from my left arm to my right. The corsage pin pricked my hand—the one with the missing pinky—and a small spot of blood oozed up from my palm. I wiped it on my leg. I didn’t want it to stain her jacket.

  The clock on the gym wall said eleven thirty. The crowd was dancing, still going strong. I didn’t see Dani anywhere.

  Then I saw Hunter heading to the doors on the opposite side of the gym.

  Dani ran up, said something to Hunter, and backed away.

  Hunter seized her arm.

  I squeezed my fists tight. Hunter was a football player, but I could take him. I rose from the bench.

  Dani moved closer to Hunter. She smiled up at him.

  She tucked her arm through his. Then they left the dance—together.

  Everyone at school knew I’d brought Dani to homecoming, and now
everyone knew she’d dumped me at homecoming to leave with the star quarterback of the Sherman County North football team.

  I sat down and put my head in my hands. A lump swelled in my throat, and it wouldn’t go away. I was glad I hadn’t eaten any cake. I would have thrown it up.

  Eleven forty-five. I folded Dani’s jacket—and mine—over my arm and exited the gym. As I walked to the parking lot, a pair of halogen headlights blinded me. I held my empty arm in front of my face. The lights dimmed.

  It was Hunter, behind the wheel of his big SUV. He had one hand on the steering wheel and his other arm around Dani.

  She never saw me standing in the road. Her eyes were fixed on Hunter.

  When I opened the door of the truck, the interior still smelled like Dani’s perfume. I pitched my jacket onto the empty passenger seat. I unpinned Dani’s corsage from her jacket and threw it out the window. Then I laid her jacket on top of mine.

  It was eleven fifty-six by my watch.

  I fingered the passenger’s side seat belt buckle. Hunter didn’t care if Dani wore her seat belt or not. Heck, he wasn’t even wearing his when I saw them together in the SUV.

  President Carter had trusted me to take care of his daughter. I’d failed.

  Eleven fifty-nine.

  My stomach tightened. I had to call him. I didn’t want to. Dani would get mad and blame me for getting her into trouble. Then there was the embarrassment of having to admit out loud to someone that I’d been dumped by my date.

  I pressed each number slowly and deliberately until I got to the sixth digit. I paused.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I backed out of my parking spot and when I turned around, I saw Dani’s battered corsage lying on the asphalt. I put the truck in gear and stepped on the ignition. The tires squealed. I ran over the corsage. I backed up and did it again, but I didn’t get the satisfaction I thought I would.

  I left the school and headed for the Carters’.

  At twelve sixteen I stood on Dani’s front porch and handed her jacket over to her father. President Carter didn’t say a word when he took it. He didn’t have to. The grief in his eyes said more than words ever could.

  He held the jacket up to his chest, nodded a silent good night, and closed the door.

  I got in the truck and headed for home. The narrow, two-lane country road was deserted and dark. I didn’t see the armadillo in my lane until it was too late. The truck rolled over him. I heard the sickening crack as his outer shell was crushed by the front wheels, then the back wheels.

  I’d never hit an animal before. Tears scorched my cheeks. I said a silent prayer and hoped that the armadillo had at least died quickly.

  When I got home, Mom was on the couch. She’d tried to wait up for me, but sleep won out. I was glad. She’d have seen my bloodshot eyes and asked a bunch of questions I didn’t want to answer. I tiptoed past her to my room.

  Lima Bean was snoozing in his usual spot on my bed. When he heard me come in, he yawned, showing off his fanglike teeth. I picked him up and held him close.

  “You’ll never be an outside cat, Lima Bean. I promise.”

  I scratched him between his ears. He rolled his head appreciatively, as if to say thank you.

  Chapter Five

  After Dad became a member of the branch presidency, we learned that the words sacrifice and convenience—when it comes to church service—rarely get used in the same sentence. He had to go to meetings before the regular Sunday meetings started, he had to stay after church for more meetings, and he had to help the clerks count the tithing and fast-offering donations.

  Then there was the Saturday night when we were in the middle of a visitation, and Dad got a call from President Carter.

  “Go ahead, Arlice.” Mom stuffed the car keys in his hand and practically shoved him out the door. “Kevin and I can handle the crowd.”

  A group of elderly women had just arrived to pay their respects to Mr. Alphonse Oxnard Beasley. I held the door as the first two entered. They were followed by an especially frail-looking lady in a wheelchair. Dad got behind her and pushed her chair over the threshold.

  The woman smacked Dad’s hand. “Get your paws off my chair!”

  Dad jerked his hand back. “Ow! What’d you do that for?”

  “I ain’t helpless, boy.” She grabbed the wheels and thrust them forward, burning rubber as she skidded across the tile floor to the chapel.

  I laughed. “You’d better go before the rest of the Red Hat Society decides to beat you up.”

  Dad got his briefcase from the office and kissed Mom good-bye. “I’ll be back later. Kevin, you mind the store.”

  “No problem.”

  When Dad got home that night, it was late and I was asleep. When I woke up Sunday morning, he’d already left for his meetings.

  Mom and I made it to church just as the prelude music ended. “Welcome to Fix-Rite,” the talking In door welcomed us in its cheery automated voice.

  “Oh! I forgot my scriptures!” Mom whispered close to my ear. “Run back out and get them for me.”

  I groaned. “Can’t you get them later?”

  “I’m teaching the eight-year-olds today, and I need them before Primary.”

  I stepped on the Out doormat. “Thank you for shopping at Fix-Rite. Please come again.” Everyone turned to see who was leaving.

  I ran to the hearse and got Mom’s scriptures. Back at the doors, I could see President Carter standing at the lectern. I grimaced as I stepped onto the mat.

  The In door opened. “Welcome to Fix-Rite,” it said, punctuating its greeting with a pneumatic hiss.

  President Carter paused while I slinked into the makeshift chapel. I took my seat next to Mom and tried to ignore the eyes of the elderly women in the front who let me know by their frowns that I’d interrupted the meeting.

  After the sacrament was passed, President Carter stood up and adjusted the microphone. “I have an important announcement this morning. I received an exciting phone call this week. The Church has purchased some land here in Sherman County, on the outskirts of Armadillo.”

  The silence was immediate. Even Dylan and Derek quit punching each other long enough to listen.

  Dad shifted in his seat behind the lectern.

  President Carter straightened his tie and cleared his throat. “By this time next year, the Armadillo, Arkansas Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be meeting in a brand-new building.”

  The collective gasp by the small congregation was followed by an outburst of applause not typical of an LDS church service.

  President Carter motioned to the crowd. “Let’s remember we’re in the house of the Lord—even if it is an old hardware store.” Then he gave the crowd a broad grin. “However, we can be reverent and joyful at the same time.”

  Mom squeezed my hand. “Isn’t this exciting?” she whispered. “We’re going to have a real church building to meet in.”

  “You think they’ll let us take the talking doors when we move out?” I joked. “I’ll miss going to church at the Fix-Rite.”

  When everyone settled down, the meeting resumed. The speakers tried to stay focused on their topics, but it was obvious that all anyone wanted to talk about was the new church building.

  Dani approached me when it was time to go to Sunday School. “Isn’t this great? We’re going to have a new building. Too bad it won’t get finished before we graduate. We could have seminary here instead of at Sister Hooper’s house.”

  My good mood vanished. Dani hadn’t spoken to me since the night she dumped me at homecoming. She was late to seminary every day—so she wouldn’t have to talk to me before class, I figured—and she’d stopped riding to school with me afterward. She didn’t speak to me in the few classes we had together at school. And when she saw me coming down the hall, she’d turn and go the opposite way.

  And now, just because we’re getting a new church building, she decides to talk to me?

  Baloney.

>   “I don’t know why you’d care,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  I could feel my heart pound and break at the same time. But I steeled myself. I stared straight ahead and refused to look her in the eyes. I spoke carefully and deliberately. “You don’t care about seminary. You don’t care about Church standards. You don’t care if you’re hurting your parents or your friends. All you care about is what Hunter Rockwell thinks of you.”

  Dani walked away. She didn’t show up for Sunday School.

  Marcy and Marshall came over for lunch when Mom and I got home from church.

  I put Lily B’s booster seat in the chair next to mine and sat her down. She ate her mashed potatoes, then grew annoyed with her peas when they rolled off her spoon. She finally ate them one at a time. Then she arranged her carrots into a small mound.

  “Why did you eat your peas and not your carrots?” I asked. “I thought you liked carrots.”

  “I do. But I want to gib my carrots to Lima Bean.”

  “Lima Bean doesn’t eat carrots. He eats cat food.”

  “Carrots taste better dan cat food.” Lily B gathered the carrots onto her napkin. She folded the napkin around the carrots and put it in her pocket.

  “How do you know?”

  “I ate some.”

  “Ate some carrots?”

  “No. Cat food.”

  I took the napkin out of Lily B s pocket. “Don’t eat cat food. It’ll make you sick.”

  “Den why do you make Lima Bean eat it?”

  “Because he’s a cat.”

  Lily B’s face shriveled up. “Dat’s not fair, Unka Kebin.”

  Marcy waddled over. “What are you fussing about?”

  Lily B tried to answer, but her words were muffled by the damp washcloth Marcy was using to wipe off her mouth.

  “She wants to give her carrots to Lima Bean,” I said. I put the napkin full of carrots back on the table.

  Lily B clenched her fists and kicked. “But—cat—food—tastes—bad! Dat’s—not—fair!”

  Marcy finished cleaning her up and helped her out of her booster seat. “Cat food tastes bad to you. It doesn’t taste bad to the cat.”