Joyce Ellen reappeared, wan but washed and combed, with a weak smile. “I read so late last night,” she explained. “I didn’t get enough sleep.” Cheryl pursed her lips. “I’m reading The Robe,” Joyce Ellen added.
Uncle Billy swiped his knife back and forth on a long stone, flourished it above his place, and began to carve. While he sliced, they passed serving dishes around silently. David piled food on his plate.
Everyone complimented the cooking. Aunt Cheryl did produce a golden brown turkey, her candied sweet potatoes had crusty peaks, the meal could have been photographed for a women’s magazine. Cheryl let them all enjoy some of it before turning her gaze onto Joyce Ellen.
“So Joyce Ellen, dear, when are we going to meet this mysterious husband of yours?”
Joyce Ellen sputtered and had to take a drink of water.
“It’s too awful, to work on Thanksgiving.”
“Mama, they don’t turn radio off on holidays!” Leona said.
Her mother gave her a smile. “No, I suppose not.”
Joyce Ellen put her fork down and patted her mouth with her napkin. They were still looking at her. “He’s in Dallas,” she said in a small voice. “The station made him go.”
David and his mother exchanged a look. He suspected his mother knew about this, but she was warning him to show no surprise, to ask no questions—unnecessary admonitions, for he did not care where Kelton spent turkey day.
“That seems very strange to me,” Cheryl commented, and then, clucking, ran off to replenish the gravy boat. Joyce Ellen, nearly tearful, looked to her mother for support. They were separated, seated across the table and at opposite ends. Suddenly this seemed deliberate, and malicious, to David. “You must sit near me,” Cheryl had said to her niece. The only other empty spot for his mother was between Brian and Billy, at the far corner. They should have been next to one another, their hands able to touch under the tablecloth. Something twinged in David, recognizing the bond his mother and sister had. It was something about females, something weak, that made them cling.
Joyce Ellen leapt up and ran down the hall. They could hear her retching. Her mother ran after her.
Cheryl asked David if he could eat another slice of turkey. He said he could, he’d like dark meat this time. Uncle Billy slopped gravy over a torn up roll on his own plate. Leona cut up a slice of jelled cranberry into tiny, disintegrating pieces. Brian’s elbow, on which he was leaning, slipped, and he crashed into his own plate and turned over his nearly empty water glass. Without getting up, Cheryl produced a towel from somewhere—under her chair? in her lap?—and wiped her son’s face, then sopped up the water on the table. David was surprised that she did not scold her son. Maybe she was still upset about her niece getting sick over her Thanksgiving dinner.
Marge came back alone. “I put her on your bed, Leona, I hope that’s all right.”
Leona giggled.
Marge sat down. “Could I have a cup of coffee now, Cheryl? I feel shaky.”
Cheryl said, as she rose, “I should think so.”
David ate three servings of turkey, corn, creamed onions, dressing, pickled cabbage, candied yams. When dessert was brought out, he had a slice of mince pie, a piece of Leona’s marshmallow fudge, and some of his mother’s Red Velvet cake. He felt a little sick, and very sleepy. Leona was persuaded by her mother to play “Moonlight Sonata” for them on the piano. She held her lower lip tightly in her teeth the entire time. Then David was subjected to a ritual grilling: what courses was he taking, what clubs was he in, was he playing tennis again? A simpering Leona asked. “Do you have a gi-irrlfriend?” Her mother looked cross, and Marge said, “It’s a time we got back on the road, Joyce Ellen’s exhausted.” She popped up like toast.
“Do you think it’s flu?” Cheryl touched Joyce’s forehead with her big pink hand. “Something she got from her father?”
Joyce Ellen blurted, “I’m pregnant, I’m not sick.”
“Ohh!” Leona cried. “Ohh, a baby!”
Cheryl softened immediately. “Why didn’t you say, dear?”
Joyce Ellen looked truly miserable.
“How can you stand to be away from your baby’s daddy?!” Leona said. “Oh, I’d want to be with my husband, if I was pregnant.”
Joyce Ellen said, “I just found out. I haven’t even told Pete yet. I just found out.”
Cheryl was on her feet. “I’ll get your cake pan,” she said. “Joyce Ellen, you take that sweater, it’s chilly as can be out there. You don’t want to get a cold now.”
“If I was pregnant, I’d get on a bus and go to Dallas and tell him right away!” Leona exclaimed. “I’d go to the moon, if I had to. I’d drink champagne to celebrate.”
“Leona!” her father scolded.
“You don’t know anything!” Joyce Ellen cried. Leona’s eyes widened. Joyce Ellen burst into tears. “I’m tired,” she said.
David heard Cheryl tell Marge, “I wish you lived over here. I could be more help.” David was glad to see she had piled leftovers in a tin pan for them to carry home.
“But she’s over there,” Marge pointed out. Cheryl nodded. She understood.
When they stopped at Joyce Ellen’s house, David waited in the car while Marge helped Joyce Ellen in. She took her purse with her, so David knew she was going to give Joyce Ellen money. He could not think why that would be necessary. The Keltons lived in a modest duplex, what did his sister need the money for? Why was Kelton in Dallas? He didn’t think anybody had explained anything. His sister was going to have a baby, though. That would give his mother something to do for the next sixteen years. One more thing for Joyce Ellen and Marge to do, one more thing to leave Saul and David out.
Saul was drunk on the couch. The television was blaring, the steak charred in the broiler, the Jello dumped in the sink. A loud argument began so suddenly David was not aware who yelled first, or what the yelling was about. Saul was a pig, Marge cared more about her sister’s family than her own, and on and on. David put the leftovers in the refrigerator, the cake on the table, then went to his room and turned on the radio loud. He got out his notebook, stared at it a long while, and finally wrote: Girls have secret lives boys can never understand. He called Leland. There were relatives at the house, but Leland would come over. David could still hear his mother screaming. “I don’t think so,” he said. Leland was annoyed. “I’ll come over there in the morning,” David said, and hung up abruptly.
The screaming went on and on. Something was thrown, the walls shuddered. David went back into the house and tugged at his mother. Saul was on the couch, his knees up, his arms thrown about as if loosely connected. It was a relief to see that he was too far gone to be menacing. “Can’t you see he’s drunk, Ma?” David pleaded. “What’s the use of talking? Let him be!” He turned off the television. “I’ll make coffee,” he said. “Come in the kitchen, please.” His father stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door. His mother sat down in the kitchen and began to weep. Her eyes were so puffy they looked about to close. “It was a long day.” David said lamely.
“When you have the first baby you’ve put chains around your neck. Children are your own special homemade prison.”
“You can’t mean that, Ma. Look at us, Joyce Ellen and me. We love you. Joyce Ellen can’t get through a week without you.”
“She can’t, she can’t!” his mother wept. “That’s what I mean!”
David patted her shoulder and stepped back to the stove to watch the coffee. His mother went on. “You’ll be gone soon, you know you’re dying to get out of here, you hate this house, you know you do.”
“Ma, I only hate it when you fight, I don’t know what to do, I want you and Pop to get along—”
“I wouldn’t do it over some other way,” his mother said. “I wouldn’t not have had you, Davy. But you’ll be gone, and what’ll I have then? A bitter man, a job with crazy people, a roof that’s going to fall in.” With her fists in her hair, she looked like she might pull it out.
David turned his back to her and stared at the pot as the coffee began to perk. He would never marry except for love. He would not live a boring life. He would not be his father, would not be his mother’s son. His mother was right, he would go away. He thought of Patsy, and his heart clutched.
He poured the coffee, and cut himself a piece of cake.
20.
He had just closed his locker when he saw Glee running down the hall. She was moving so fast and heedlessly, she knocked some poor girl aside and sent books flying. “Oh, sorry!” she shrieked, still running.
She was out of breath, her face red. “It’s so exciting!” she said to him. “You won’t believe it.”
“Try me,” he sighed. She wound her arm around his and steered him in the wrong direction. “I’ve got civics—that way.”
“Walk me to English,” she said. She was bouncing as she walked. “Ohhh!” she squealed.
The bell rang. They were outside her classroom. “Now you’ve got me in trouble,” he said, although he doubted his stupid civics teacher would notice, or care.
“Nobody’s going to get you in trouble, David Puckett.” She was still relishing what she knew that he did not.
“Glee, I’m late, you’re going to be tardy in another minute, will you just tell me what’s on in your pea-brain so I can get to class?”
She jumped a step and kissed him on the cheek. “You know Sandy and I are practically best friends, and she’s on yearbook.”
He could not keep track of her best girlfriends.
“I saw her going down to the office with the announcements.”
“I’m leaving.”
She held his elbow. “Just wait.” She peeked inside her classroom and waved at Mr. Rigsby. “I’m here,” she called. Rigsby gave her a glancing look and turned to write on the board. “What are you doing, Hewett?” somebody called from within the class.
The principal came on the intercom. “I know you’ve all been waiting for the results of the yearbook elections,” he said, “so if you’ll all settle down I’ll read them to you right now.” Glee was grinning so big it looked like her face would crack.
In a moment he understood why. She was the runner-up for Senior Class Favorite. He was pleased for her. He gave her a big smacking kiss on the mouth. Somebody in the class whistled. “That’s not all,” she said.
Beth Ann Kimbrough was Most Beautiful. This was no surprise. “I’ve got to go,” he told Glee. Then he heard his own name. “What did he say?”
Glee kissed him this time. “You were elected Most Likely to Succeed.” She threw her arms around him. “I’m so proud of you! I’m so happy!”
Over her shoulder he saw that half the English class was watching. He gave them a wave and backed away. “That’s crazy!” he said. “Succeed at what?”
When he went to his locker at the end of the day there was a folded piece of notebook paper taped to it. “At what?” the paper said. He stared at the handwriting. It seemed familiar.
At what, that was the very question.
The next day he saw Beth Ann at student council. They congratulated one another rather formally. Talking to her brought a lump to his throat. She never said anything in council, unless it was to answer a question. She sat to his right, and back of him, so that he could not see her. It took a lot of self-control to keep from turning. She was so beautiful and elegant.
“I work on yearbook staff during your library hour,” she told him as the meeting was breaking up. “Come by if you can.”
When she saw him later at the door of the yearbook office, she got up and came out into the hall. “I voted for you.”
He did not understand how it happened. “There are kids you know will have their own businesses. Kids who’ll go to law school, med school.”
“Everybody knows you’ll go away and come back important.”
He laughed. “Everybody but me, I guess.”
“It takes something special. Something different.”
He felt brave and silly. “I voted for you, too.”
“My mother says when somebody tells you you’re beautiful they might as well come out and say the rest of it: that you’re not very smart.”
“I don’t think that!”
“Nobody thinks a girl can be both. My mother was Miss Texas, you know.”
“You look like her.”
Now she smiled. “My mother’s the smartest woman I know. She married my daddy.”
“I better get back to the library.”
“Come in a minute. You’ve got to see what I’m working on.” She was collating the senior goal statements, to go under their photographs. “Look,” she said. “So far four kids want to be missionaries in Africa. One wants to go to Red China. There must be twenty who want to do God’s will.”
“I guess that’s not too surprising around here.”
“I haven’t got to yours.”
“I didn’t put one down. Did you?”
“I said I wanted to live up to my parents’ example.”
“That’s nice.”
“If you think of something, you can still put it in.”
He was looking at her desk. Tyrone Knight wanted to be one of America’s finest embalmers. “Look at that,” he said.
She laughed lightly. “I like the serious ones best.” He said he had to go. She touched his hand. “Congratulations to your girlfriend, too, David. She’s such a sweet sweet girl.”
He blurted, before he thought about it, “We might be breaking up.”
That night Glee called him at home. “You never learn,” he told her. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” she shouted. “Sometimes you are one hundred percent awful. You go around expecting things of people but you don’t say what. You act like I’m a dog peeing on your leg sometimes. Everybody in our class likes me a lot but you!” She slammed down the phone. He called her back. “My dad’s not home, I haven’t got a car,” he said. “If you would drive we could go to Dewey’s a while.” Everybody would be out. They would honk and wave. She had already calmed down. “I’m going with my girlfriends,” she said. “I’m just headed out the door.”
He had the car. A little after five, he went down to the clothing store to pick up his father. Saul had suggested that they go have barbecue that night.
He spent a few minutes admiring the good clothes. He loved the feel of fine fabric between his fingers. The manager, Chuck Bradley, came up behind him. “You’re looking good, David,” he said. “How’s every little thing treating you?”
David shook Bradley’s hand. “Things are swell, sir.”
“Sir, huh! I like your style, David. I could use you at Christmas, you know. Why don’t you come down Saturday, let me start breaking you in.”
He did not have enough money for a car, he would need money if he went away to school, but the thought of selling men’s pants made his stomach clench. “I’d be grateful for the opportunity, sir,” he said. He wasn’t sure what his father would think.
“I’ll give you a discount on clothes, too,” Bradley said, “We put a good suit on you, you’ll bowl over the customers. I could make a real salesman out of you, you finish school this year. Retail men’s wear’s a place to build a future.”
Sick at the very thought, David nodded, to let Bradley know he had a customer behind him.
He walked toward the fitting rooms to look for his father. He saw Hayden Kimbrough come out of one of the little rooms, his pants tacked at the bottom, followed by Saul with pins in his mouth. They arranged themselves in front of the three-way mirror. Kimbrough tugged at the inseam below his crotch and studied his reflection. He said something, and Saul nodded. David, standing behind a rack of sport coats, watched as Saul knelt in front of Kimbrough’s legs to adjust the seam.
21.
David saw how his life ran along with the pieces laid out like thread on a table top, pieces and pieces of parallel thread, never touching. As soon as he thought of it that way—Glee a thread, his parents a thread, his frie
ndship with Leland, and so on, all the pieces, separate, never touching—he realized it was bound to change. Life was never so neat as to save you trouble when you started complicating it, and he saw that that was what he had been doing, maybe what he was doing just by getting up in the morning and putting in another day. He wanted a complicated life, he realized that, too. He wanted parts of it to butt other parts, and in this way the trivial things, the sad things, could be pushed aside, and better things could take over. Only what were these “things?” He could not find the words he knew were inside him, words like love and music and pain and work.
The only person he could think of who might understand what he was thinking was Patsy Randall. He thought of going to see her and saying, “It would help a lot if I could see the future like a play on CBS. What doors am I going in and out of? What chair am I sitting in? Who’s in the room with me?” They could invent possibilities. Sometimes he thought about what had happened that last night between them, and he remembered the things they said to one another, that she was a coward, that he was no man. It did not seem right that they had hurt one another like that, not over sex. He had wanted to be close to her, that was what it had been about. He had been caught up in the drama of the play. He remembered his anger, too, but she had been scared and confused, and he felt sorry that he had not known what to do. He knew an older man would have. Other times, when he thought about her, and about their misunderstanding, it was all quite vague, and he hoped she remembered it that way, as cloud-breath on a cold night.
He saw her downtown a few days after Christmas vacation began. On a break from the clothing store, he had gone into the jeweler’s two doors up the street, to look for a Christmas gift for Glee. He wanted his gift to be in a jeweler’s box and not from a department store, but he did not want to spend very much money. He had fifteen minutes to look; he thought he would come every day until he decided on something appropriate.
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