“I’d like a Sprite,” I said.
He smiled with this tiny bit of glistening in his eyes. Then he finished his drink, turned around, and headed back to the bar.
Maybe I should have walked away, disappeared into a crowd of people, found Dewey and danced again, but I didn’t. I stood there and waited for my Sprite.
Mr. Banks approached me and handed me the plastic cup. I’d never tasted vodka before, but the moment it hit my tongue, I knew that’s what it was. And then I realized the mistake I’d made. He’d thought I was insinuating that I wanted alcohol, when actually I meant exactly what I’d said, that I wanted a Sprite. I stood there not knowing what to do, so I drank a little more.
“You finish that one, I can get you another,” he said.
“I don’t want another one,” I said.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
All the while I sipped from the cup, he just kept standing there beside me. I didn’t much care for the way the vodka tasted, but I liked the way my body was beginning to feel. All my bones and muscles seemed to experience a new sort of gravity, and I got to thinking maybe I could let Mr. Banks buy me one more drink. But I also got to thinking something was out of sorts. I’d never known an adult I couldn’t trust before. The ground beneath me was feeling like entirely new territory the past couple of days, making me plenty uneasy.
I swallowed the last of the vodka, the ice cool as it fell against my lips. When I lowered the cup, Mr. Banks reached for it, walked away, and I knew he had gone to buy me another.
I looked for Daddy and Ethel Lee, but couldn’t find them among the crowd. I looked for Evie and Billy, but couldn’t find them, either, and I had no idea where Mary Jordan and Doug had taken off to. Then I got to thinking about my mom and Mr. Savoi. And the more I got to thinking about all the people whom I couldn’t find, the more frightened and alone I felt. I didn’t want my mom with Mr. Savoi. I didn’t want to be away from my friends, and I didn’t want to spend any more time with Mr. Banks.
I spotted him standing by the bar. I didn’t want another vodka. I didn’t want him running his hand up my spine or taking me for a walk or kissing me in the dark. All I could think about was getting away from everything that felt wrong, and that’s exactly what I did. I eased my way through the crowd of people and walked to the back of the ballroom, where a door opened out into a courtyard. For a moment I thought maybe my mom and Mr. Savoi would be there, but they weren’t.
The courtyard was shaded by magnolia trees and encircled by a white privacy fence. At the back of the fence was a gate. I unlatched the gate and turned down the alley, the sun feeling as hot as a frying pan sitting on top of my head.
The alley wound itself around the backside of Market Street, aligning itself with the delivery doors of the different shops and businesses in town. The door to Bessie Faye’s Creole in the Mornin’ Diner was wide open. Just walking past there, I could feel the air around me warm up a good twenty degrees from all her cooking. I’d been flat out starving by the time the wedding was over. Now I felt like my stomach had twisted itself into a tiny knot, squeezing out every bit of the appetite I’d had. I didn’t know how anyone could smell Bessie Faye’s talent incarnate and not be hungry.
It didn’t take me long to come upon the back of Mr. Savoi’s art gallery. For a second, I thought I’d just keep walking myself straight home. But then I thought about Mr. Savoi’s painting my mama butt naked. I thought about the painting being displayed for the whole world of Sweetbay to see. Before I knew it, I had my fingers wrapped around the metal handset, and pushed my thumb down on its latch. I thought the door would be locked. It wasn’t.
I slipped my feet out of my shoes so as not to make too much noise, pushed the door open, and stepped barefoot over the threshold. I was standing in a storage room that was mostly empty except for a couple of canvas crates. There was a hallway at the other end of the room.
I thought I heard something, though I wasn’t exactly sure what. I moved toward the hallway—a narrow space about five feet long. At the end of it was another door. The sound came again, reminding me of someone with a bad cold trying to breathe. As I got closer to the door, I thought I heard two people with a bad cold.
I probably should have left right then and there, but instead, I just kept inching my way down the short hallway.
The noise in the other room grew louder. It didn’t sound like a couple of bad colds anymore; it sounded like downright pneumonia. With the tips of my fingers, I nudged the door open enough for me to look in. In the far right corner of the room, on a couple of blue packing blankets, was the barest bottom I’d ever seen. I don’t know why it looked any barer than my mama’s had a couple of days before, but it did. From the angle of my view, I couldn’t be sure whom it belonged to, much less be sure of the other person lying beneath it, but the fear that the other person might be my mama gave me such a shock, my breath seized up in my chest like a ball of wax.
I wheeled myself around as fast as I could and ran like there was no tomorrow. I slammed the back door behind me and kept on running till I was at the road, only then realizing I’d left my navy heels outside the gallery in the alley. I wasn’t about to go back for them. As far as I was concerned, the world had become one big messed-up place, and I had no idea how to put it back together. I missed Evie. I missed Mary Jordan. I missed seeing my mama and daddy do more together than just occupy the house. And I missed how I’d felt before Mr. Banks had walked into my life, when right seemed right and wrong seemed wrong and there weren’t so many feelings caught in between.
I was walking down the sidewalk toward home, thinking all these thoughts, when I heard Dewey hollering my name.
As I turned around, he came riding up beside me on his bike.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere,” I said.
He just smiled that grin of his that I was starting to like real well. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said.
I was still walking. He was riding slowly beside me.
“Want to hop on?” he asked.
“My legs are too long.”
“Your legs are perfect,” he said.
I smiled despite myself.
“Hop on,” he said.
I did.
Florence Nightingale
“Where to, Florence Nightingale?” Dewey asked as he pedaled us down the street.
“I thought I was the Queen of Sheba,” I said, balancing myself on the seat.
“You’re Florence Nightingale tonight.”
“And may I ask why?” I said as Dewey pedaled us right past my house.
“I’ll tell you later.”
I was glad I was with Dewey, and yet I wanted to be angry at him, too, as if he were to blame for the attention between his dad and my mom.
“So where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Where do you want to go?”
“How long do you think you can ride like this?”
“Didn’t I tell you I’m a triathlete? I can ride this way as long as you want,” he said.
“You’re not a triathlete,” I said.
“It’s that obvious, huh?”
Once again Dewey made me laugh, no matter how hard I tried not to. “This is pretty pathetic,” I said.
“What’s pathetic?”
“Us. Two seniors on a bicycle. I feel like we’re a couple of little kids.”
“Pathetic, or romantic?” he said. “I choose romantic.”
We were almost out of town, riding beside moss-draped oaks and azalea bushes as lush as velvet. The heat from the day was relinquishing its punishing fist, the air becoming softer. I hadn’t forgotten about what I saw at the gallery. I hadn’t let go of my fear that the couple might be my mom and Mr. Savoi, yet I kept telling myself over and over it wasn’t them. Mr. Savoi had gray hair that hung down to his collar. I didn’t remember the person I saw as hav
ing gray hair.
Dewey took a right onto the county road that led south of town. I continued to hold my legs out to the sides, my short navy skirt riding clear up to the seat, the salt air touching my face and tossing my hair behind me. The world still weighed heavily on my shoulders, yet riding as I was with Dewey made my shoulders feel a little stronger.
“Nice night for the beach, don’t you think?” Dewey said.
“You can’t ride all the way out there like this. It’s a good seven miles at least.”
“Who says I can’t ride like this?”
“I say,” I told him.
“Well, that just goes to show you that you don’t know me very well.” His voice was lighthearted.
“Well maybe I can’t ride that far like this.”
“And why’s that?” Dewey asked.
“Suppose a car goes whipping by us entirely too close. It might just take off my left leg.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.
“How can you make sure?” I said.
“Don’t you trust me?”
I closed my mouth for a good solid minute, contemplating his question. He didn’t give me time to answer.
“Trust me,” he said.
And I knew Dewey meant a whole lot more than not letting me get dismembered by an automobile. Those two little words of his dug down deep inside of me, as if wrapping a strong arm around all my troubles.
Neither one of us said another word until after we reached the parking area for Skinny Neck Beach. Dewey planted his feet on the ground while I climbed off. He laid the bike in the grass.
I took off running for the levee. He followed after me, both of us gasping for air before we were even halfway to the top.
“Told ya you weren’t a triathlete,” I said, the two of us laughing.
At the top, Dewey took my hand, making me stop. “Hold up,” he said, catching his breath.
We stood together, looking out over the ocean. The sky was a perfect blue, as if God had ground chalk the color of cornflower and blown it evenly before us.
We didn’t run down the hill. We walked slowly, still holding hands, my bare feet sinking into the sandy earth.
Down the right stretch of the beach were a couple of people walking away from us. Other than that, we had the whole place to ourselves. Dewey let go of my hand and knelt to untie his shoes. After he took off his shoes and socks, we sat beside each other, planting our hands behind us in the sand.
“So how come you called me Florence Nightingale?” I asked him.
“You know who Florence Nightingale was?”
“Sure. She was a nurse.”
“She wasn’t just a nurse,” he said. “She was the pioneer of nursing.”
“So why’d you call me that?”
“Seems to me you’ve had a lot of people to look after these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just think you have a lot of people you care about,” he told me.
“Everybody has a lot of people they care about,” I said.
“I don’t know. Maybe not everybody. Maybe not everyone cares as much as other people.”
“What other people?” I said.
“Oh, let’s see. She’s about five ten with long black hair and big black eyes.”
For some reason unbeknown to me, my throat tightened itself up into one big knot.
Dewey leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Remember what I said back on the bike? Trust me.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Talk to me, Lucy.”
I pulled my knees up slightly, wrapped my fingers around my toes. “Who says I have anything to talk about?”
“Didn’t expect you to leave the reception so soon.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Didn’t expect to find your shoes outside my dad’s gallery, either,” he said.
With those words, my heart seemed to fling itself against my rib cage like a shot put. “You found my shoes?” I said.
“I saw them outside the door when I was looking for you.”
“What did you do with them?” I asked.
“Didn’t do anything with them. Thought maybe you’d come back for them.”
“Did you go inside?” I was staring straight out over the ocean, afraid to meet Dewey’s eyes.
“No, why?”
I continued to stare straight ahead. Before I could blink, my throat tightened itself up again, so much so that before I knew it, big tears squeezed out of my eyes. I tried to wipe them away, but as I raised my fingers, Dewey clasped them in his hand, letting my tears roll off my cheeks.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I told him.
He didn’t say anything. He just kept holding my hand.
“I just don’t understand what’s happening to everyone,” I said.
“Who?” Dewey asked.
“All of us. Evie, Mary Jordan. Mama and Daddy.”
“What’s happening to everyone?” he said.
“I feel like something’s pulling us apart. Mary Jordan’s with Doug, and Evie and…”
“And what?”
How could I tell Dewey about everything that was bothering me? How could I tell him I worried his daddy and my mama were having an affair? Or that part of me had liked Mr. Banks’s kissing me? How could I tell him about my mom and dad when I didn’t even understand what was going on between them? Or about Mary Jordan spending all her time with Doug? Or about Evie dancing with Billy, and that I wanted to be dancing like that, too? How could I tell him that life and everyone I loved suddenly felt all disjointed at the seams.
All of a sudden, I realized Dewey wasn’t just holding my hand. His thumb was rubbing back and forth ever so gently over my knuckles. I’d been so busy thinking about everything, for the life of me I couldn’t remember when he’d started doing that, but once my brain acknowledged it, I couldn’t even remember exactly what it was I’d been thinking about.
“You still have everybody,” Dewey said. “Just because people find someone they care about doesn’t mean you’ve lost them. It just means your circle’s gotten bigger.”
“It’s not the same,” I said.
“What about you?” he said.
“What about me, what?”
“What if you find somebody you care about?”
I sat silent for a moment, letting Dewey rub my hand the way he was. “It’s not the growing up part I mind,” I said. “It’s just that I want us to all grow up together.”
“You are growing up together.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Anyone who’s been around the three of you would say the same thing. I bet you can’t go twenty-four hours away from each other without having withdrawal symptoms.”
I smiled. “You’re right.”
We squeezed each other’s hands.
“Hey, Dewey?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks.”
And then he did something I will never forget. He lifted my hand to his mouth, held it there for a moment, his breath warm against my skin, and kissed my fingers. At that moment, I felt so much, I hurt, and I wanted to tell it all to Dewey like a story. I wanted him to understand it and explain it back to me, but there weren’t any words, there was just all this feeling.
“Do you understand me?” I finally said. I wasn’t even sure where those words had come from.
He didn’t answer right away. I felt my heart start to pull back from him, as if I had stepped somewhere I shouldn’t go.
Then Dewey said, “I understand a part of you, but not all of you. I want to understand you better. I’m still coming toward you.”
I pressed my body closer to his, leaned my weight against him. “That’s good,” I said, but it was better than good. Dewey’s words made me feel different inside, as if I was becoming something wonderful, and I wasn’t even sure how it was happening. I laid my face against his shoulder, breathed him in, the smell of his shirt, the ocean air.
The sun was setting, and I was certain I could even smell the colors seeping into the sky around us, the muted gold of a mango, a sliver of tangerine and violet. I felt free. Free of my troubles, free of words. I let go of Dewey’s hand, slipped both arms around his waist and locked my fingers together, because at that moment, I just wanted to hold on to everything good.
Warm Honey
The next morning after I showered, I rode my bike to St. Vincent’s Park, wanting to sort my way through the previous day. Cirrus clouds stretched overhead and seemed to darken by the minute. I hoped it would rain. I loved the smell of rain on hot asphalt. I loved the way the rain made the grass smell, too, and the way it curled up my straight hair.
I was wearing my basketball shoes without any socks, and my bib overall shorts, and one of Billy’s old T-shirts from a baseball clinic he’d attended in junior high. My hair hung down my back. I rode up to the park and laid my bike in the grass, then walked over to the swing set. I sat on one of the rubber swings and pushed myself slightly back and forth, creating rivulets in the dirt with the heels of my shoes.
“Hey, there.”
I hadn’t seen a soul when I rode up to the park, but I’d know Mary Jordan’s voice anywhere. When I turned around, I saw her sitting on one of the corners of the sandbox at the bottom of the fort, a two-story gym set the Lions Club had donated to the park the year before.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Just sitting.”
“Want to come sit over here?”
Mary Jordan crawled out from underneath the fort. She brushed the sand from her legs and walked over to the swing next to me.
“How’s Doug?” I asked.
“Good.”
I kept swinging back and forth, dragging my shoes along the ground. Mary Jordan started swinging back and forth, too. She held her legs straight out in front of her.
“Hey, Lucy?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever wonder about love?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s such a big thing. I mean, how do you know if somebody loves you?”
“I can’t say I’m the best person to be asking. It’s not like I’m real seasoned on the matter.”
Love, Cajun Style Page 13
