Leigh

by Lyn Cote

  Leigh didn’t want to agree with Cherise, but part of her did. She felt grateful to Cherise, but resented that, too. Leigh had always thought that Cherise had exercised a great deal of self-serving charm in high school. But she’d never blamed Cherise for this, because as the first black student in an all-white school, Cherise had faced stresses that Leigh hadn’t. And that ambiguity had set the stage for how she felt now. How could she like and dislike Cherise, trust and distrust her, all at the same time? Perhaps this was all tied up with her feelings about Frank.

  “So…,” Cherise said, sounding apologetic, “what did you think of my news?”

  The moment had come. Leigh steeled herself to say what she must, what she had to in order to salvage even a scrap of her self-respect. “I was surprised, but of course, I’m so very happy for you, Cherise, for both you and Frank.” Her heart constricted so tightly it felt like it might fracture into slivers. “Have you set the date?”

  “We’re going to wait until he comes home from Nam. I worry so. So many GIs are dying there every week, and with sabotage so rampant, Frank doesn’t even have to be part of a mission to be in danger.”

  “I know. I worry, too.” I do.Two of the people she cared about the most were in danger.

  “I know it might be difficult for you. But I’m hoping that you will be my maid of honor,” Cherise said softly.

  Raw pain whispered through Leigh’s every nerve, enveloping her in a haze of red-tinged agony, like going up in flames. She pictured herself standing beside a white-gowned Cherise as she exchanged vows with Frank in his uniform, lethally handsome. Why had Cherise said, “I know it might be hard for you?” Was that because of Mary Beth’s disappearance or because Cherise knew that Leigh still had feelings for Frank? Could Cherise be knowingly cruel?

  No answers came to her and, of course, there was only one possible reply for her to make. “I’d be honored,” she pushed the rasping words through her dry lips.

  “That will mean a lot to me and Frank, especially since I wouldn’t have even met him if it hadn’t been for you.”

  With these innocent words, Cherise slid the knife neatly into Leigh’s back and twisted the blade. Leigh nearly gasped aloud. “My pleasure,” she murmured, reeling. “I have to hang up now.” Leigh fell back on the pat, polite phrases her mother had taught her. “I just wanted to tender my best wishes.”

  “Thanks, Leigh. And please keep me posted about Mary Beth. You know I’m terribly worried about her.”

  “Of course. Bye.” Leigh hung up. She crumpled Cherise’s letter and dropped it onto the hall table.

  The doorbell rang.

  Leigh groaned. What now?Still, she forced herself to the door and opened it. It was Dane.

  He stepped inside and stared at her. “What’s wrong? Did you get news about Mary Beth? Did she turn up at the morgue?”

  Too much had happened that day. In that moment, Leigh ceased fighting her attraction to Dane. She walked up to him, flush against his chest, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Hold me.” Keep me together before I shatter.

  Dane looked as if he wanted to say more. He gazed at the crumpled letter on the hall table. But after another glance at her, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her even closer to him. “Let it out.” His deep voice drifted over her, sifting through her like soft, soothing powder. “Let it all out.”

  She burst into tears, not gentle ones. Hurricane-force emotions swept through her.

  Dane didn’t waste words. He held her and stroked her back, ran his fingers through her long hair, and murmured to her, words she barely heard, didn’t even try to comprehend. The presence, the essence of Dane enfolded her, seeped into her—lush, comforting, commanding.

  Finally, she straightened, shaky, but oddly not embarrassed. She felt as though she’d just survived an earthquake of the heart. Nothing would ever be the same. She would never be the same. She wiped her wet cheeks with her fingertips.

  “Sorry I broke down like that,” she mumbled. Maybe Dane didn’t feel the same attraction to her. Certainly, he hadn’t experienced the same catharsis she just had. So she pulled away and looked down. But I can’t help or hide what just happened.

  Dane halted her retreat. He slid a hand into the hair just above her nape. “Someone write you a Dear John letter?”

  She looked up at him, wondering how he’d guessed so accurately. Her body overwhelmed her thought, calling, shouting for her to go back into his arms.

  He leaned close to her face. “I’ve tried to hold back, but do you know—” His breath fanned her mouth. “—how much I’ve wanted to kiss you?”

  She stared at him, too shocked to speak. The thought of kissing Dane reverberated inside of her.

  “But I won’t. You’re just a kid—”

  “I am not a kid,” she snapped, leaning forward. Not after today.She let her lips hover over his, daring him.

  Then his mouth took possession of hers. His skilled, delicious assault swept away her resistance, and she clung to his shoulders. “I shouldn’t be kissing you. Something in that letter has upset you,” he whispered as he nuzzled her ear. “And you’re vulnerable. That’s why you’re kissing me.”

  She turned her face and initiated their second kiss, forcing him into silence. He didn’t refuse her, but deepened their kiss, drawing it out, lingering.

  When his lips finally released hers, Leigh found it hard to draw breath. She stayed within his arms, feeling the full effect of his kisses, his embrace undulating through her, melting her.

  “I shouldn’t take advantage of you.” He fingered a lock of her golden hair. “What’s upset you?”

  She shook her head and wouldn’t answer him. Thinking about Frank and Cherise together was like stepping out of an airplane. Free falling. Then why am I kissing Dane? Does anything make sense anymore?

  He nudged her chin upward and gazed into her eyes. “This isn’t about Mary Beth. These aren’t that kind of tears. Bad news about her wouldn’t force you into my arms. Who’s hurt you enough to make you seek consolation?”

  She refused to answer. She pulled away, even though stepping out of his arms chilled her. Turning to the oval hall table, she tugged a pale-pink tissue from the box there. “Why are you here?”

  “I have to fly back to D.C. in a few hours.” His voice went back to normal. “I came to say good-bye and to warn you not to get yourself into anything dangerous while I’m gone.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, a grim look. “Why do you think I’d—”

  “I know. I know.” He moved to grip her arms with both hands. “You’re Joan of Arc and you’re on a mission for God that doesn’t permit concern for your own safety.” He pressed a soft kiss below her right ear.

  “Don’t make fun of me.” Her back to him, she dried her cheeks with the soft tissue.

  “I’m not. You can’t help it if you’re Joan of Arc.” He kissed her in the same spot behind the left ear. “She didn’t choose to be God’s instrument—God chose her.”

  She turned and faced him, feeling defiant. “Call me what you like. I can’t leave San Francisco until I feel like I’ve done everything I can to find Mary Beth.”

  “Well, that’s progress. Before it was, ‘I won’t leave until I’ve found Mary Beth.’ “ He lifted her chin with his forefinger. “Whoever he is—he’s not worth this reaction. No man is. Let him go. I won’t offer you love, but I’ll take better care of you than he evidently did.”

  His words didn’t faze her. His touch did. Tingling wherever his skin grazed hers, she expected him to kiss her again, and she teetered on the edge of decision. Did she want him to or not?

  A kiss on her forehead, and without a word he left her there, shocked out of her pain, shocked at her deep response to him. Sunlight and rainbows danced on the foyer walls. And McCaslin ancestors in their frames had watched and listened. Was she already falling in love again? Could she be that stupid?

  “No, Mother,” Leigh replied over the phone two days later, �
��I won’t be coming home soon. Aunt Kitty said I can stay with her as long as I want, and I’m going to accept her invitation.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re doing. I’m sorry that Mary Beth is still missing. I’m sorry her boyfriend was found dead, but I fail to see why you must interrupt your senior year—”

  “Mother,” Leigh cut in, “it’s too late for me to take classes anywhere this semester. Next semester I may enroll out here. I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to throw away the chance to have a college degree? I don’t understand you.”

  At last, she admits it. “Mother, I have plenty of time to finish. I’m just taking a semester off. It isn’t the end of the world. Just let it go, all right?”

  “I don’t think you should be a burden to Aunt Kitty. And I don’t think your stepfather and I should support you unless you’re a full-time student.”

  Whatever. “I can get a job out here, then.”

  Her mother made a sound of irritation, kind of like a tea kettle releasing steam. “Your little sister wants to talk to you.”

  Dory’s soft voice came on the line. “Leigh, I miss you. If you aren’t in school, why can’t you come home?”

  Denying her little sister was harder, and her mother knew that. “Ladybug, I’ll come home for Christmas just like I would have anyway. I miss you, too. How is your friend Lucy?”

  “She’s okay. But she’s not you.”

  That made Leigh grin. “I love you, ladybug. Bye.”

  “Love you, too. Bye.”

  Leigh hung up and walked into the parlor where Kitty, wearing half-glasses, was reading. “Mom isn’t happy about my staying. But I just can’t go home.”

  Kitty looked up. “I understand, dear. Your mother reminds me a little of your great-grandmother Lily Leigh Kimball. She thought Chloe, your grandmother, was a china doll. Miss Lily wanted to be able to set Chloe down where and when she wanted her and she expected her daughter to stay put. No one ought to try to do that to another person. And you’re going through one of those awful times when life comes in like the ocean and sweeps you away.”

  Leigh sat down on the arm of her aunt’s chair and gave her a half smile. “Thanks for letting me stay.” For understanding.

  “Have you thought about what you’d like to do while you continue to look for Mary Beth?”

  Leigh sighed. “It’s a little late for classes anywhere. I think I should get a job and pay you room and board.”

  “You may get a job, but I don’t need any room and board from you. For heaven’s sake, you’re family.”

  A few days later

  Leigh stood behind the cash register near the end of her first day of work. She’d gotten the job at the little shop where she’d applied that day with “hippie” Dane at her side. She still had hopes that Mary Beth might walk by. At least this job gave her a reason to hang out in the Haight-Ashbury area. Learning to run the cash register had been no stretch, and she just had to dust and learn where everything was in the store. The proprietress would work the same hours as she did for the first week, and then she’d be on her own. Leigh hoped that there would be lots of customers to distract her from the troubles of her life.

  Her mind was much too busy chewing painfully over and over on where Mary Beth could be, the upcoming nuptials of Frank and Cherise, why she’d kissed Dane and let him kiss her—and why it had affected her so. She couldn’t think about it without reliving the sensations he’d triggered in her. No other man had ever affected her this way—except Frank. And Frank was marrying Cherise.

  The bell over the door jingled. Leigh looked up and froze.

  “Hi, Leigh,” Mary Beth muttered.

  Leigh scanned her friend and didn’t like what she saw, but simple, bone-deep relief sluiced through her anyway. “ Mary Beth,I’ve been so worried!”

  Mary Beth—much thinner, dirty, bedraggled—shrugged. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was worried.” Leigh held onto the edge of the counter to keep herself from rushing over to her friend. She wanted to hug Mary Beth, but her appearance, her stance warned Leigh away. “I came to California looking for you.”

  Mary Beth nodded. “I saw you once with that guy. Who is he? Are you dating him?”

  “He’s just a friend.” Of my stepfather.Then her lips tingled with the memory of Dane’s kisses. Those weren’t friendly in any sense of the word.

  “Well, I just wanted to say hi.” Flashing the peace sign, Mary Beth turned to go.

  “No, Mary Beth, wait.” Leigh stepped around the counter and hurried forward. “Why don’t you come home with me for dinner? I’m staying with my Aunt Kitty. She’d love to meet you.” Don’t leave me. Let me help you.

  Mary Beth stood, looking at her. She looked drugged, hungry, subdued. “Okay, why not?”

  That evening in Kitty’s parlor, Leigh sat on a tapestry sofa across from Mary Beth. Her friend had tucked her bare feet under the light-blue kimono Aunt Kitty had loaned her after Mary Beth had taken a long hot soak in the claw-foot tub upstairs. Mary Beth’s clothes were spinning in the dryer off the kitchen. Leigh tried not to stare, but this Mary Beth had none of the spark that her friend had always possessed in abundance. Her eyes were sunken, and dark circles rimmed them. Where had Mary Beth, the eager puppy dog, gone? Leigh felt like crying. But at least she’d found Mary Beth—or Mary Beth had found her.

  Anyway, now Leigh could help her friend. Everything would work out all right. But first, did Mary Beth know about Chance? And should she tell Mary Beth? Might that derail her friend again?

  On the loveseat, Mary Beth and Aunt Kitty were having a discussion on early blues singers. A conversation that ignored all the issues Leigh wanted to discuss with her friend. What did she care about Bessie Smith? What did that have to do with 1968? There were things she needed to discuss with Mary Beth. What about going back East? What about school?

  “Mary Beth, do you know that Chance is dead?” Leigh asked abruptly, unable to hold back any longer.

  Absolute silence in the parlor was the only reply. There was only the sound of the dryer spinning in the distance.

  “Yeah, he had a bad trip.” Mary Beth looked away.

  Leigh waited for some further comment, some expression of sorrow. Something that would sound like Mary Beth.

  “That happens,” Mary Beth finished and turned to Kitty. “I really like your pad.” She gazed around at the room, where a fine collection of early-twentieth-century art glass was on display.

  “Thanks.” Kitty smiled. “I like it. I’m glad you came. Leigh has been worried about you.”

  “What are your plans?” Leigh asked her friend.

  “Plans?” Mary Beth looked at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign language.

  “Yes, we both should have been finishing college this year. I came to find you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Leigh echoed. “Because you’re my friend. Because I was worried about you. I was afraid you’d gotten hurt in Chicago.”

  “Chicago,” Mary Beth repeated, as if finally catching something of what Leigh was saying. “That was a heavy scene. Heavy.”

  Leigh felt like slapping Mary Beth. She was acting like a caricature of a hippie, not Mary Beth.

  Kitty intervened. “Well, I think we’ve discussed old times long enough. Why don’t you two turn in for the night? We can discuss the future tomorrow after a good night’s rest and a hearty breakfast. What do you think?”

  “Cool,” Mary Beth assented.

  Leigh took the hint from a pointed look Kitty sent her. There was always tomorrow. “Fine. I am tired.”

  This strange Mary Beth with the hollow cheeks and emaciated body followed her up the stairs and perched on the rose-pink bedspread. She watched Leigh prepare for bed and then joined her at the sink, where they both brushed their teeth like they had so many times during childhood sleepovers and in the dorm. Mary Beth got into bed first. Leigh turned off the light and climbed in on her side of the bed. />
  “Have you talked to my parents?” Mary Beth asked in the darkened room, her first real question of the evening.

  “Yes.” Leigh didn’t know what to add.

  “What did they say?” Mary Beth pressed, for the first time showing any interest in what Leigh had to say.

  “They… they said that you were an adult,” Leigh repeated what she remembered from her conversations with them. “That you didn’t need them telling you what to do and that maybe our generation would finally bring about revolution. That capitalistic America was long overdue for one.”

  “Oh.” Her friend sounded… what? Leigh couldn’t identify the emotion. Mary Beth had been “blunted” somehow, and Leigh didn’t know what more to say. How had Mary Beth gotten along with her parents?

  Leigh recalled Frank’s description of his mother’s bland acceptance of everything he did, good or bad. And she thought of her mother, who had a firm and usually negative opinion about everything Leigh did and didn’t mind giving it. Why couldn’t parents be more like Grandma Chloe, who loved, tried to speak the truth, but never tried to control or dominate?

  “Thanks for worrying about me,” Mary Beth whispered in the dark. “ ’Night.”

  “ ’Night.” Leigh lay on her side watching city light flow into the room from the tall window beside the bed. She didn’t know what she’d expected upon finding Mary Beth. But whatever it had been, this wasn’t it.

  *

  In the early hours of morning, Leigh suddenly opened her eyes. In the moonlight she saw what looked like the light-blue kimono Mary Beth had been wearing lying on the floor. She rolled over and patted the other side of the bed. She was alone. She sat up and threw back the covers. She ran lightly to the bathroom first. It was empty. She checked the den. Also vacant. Then she hurried silently down the stairs and walked through the rooms, heading for the kitchen. Had her friend gotten up for an early-morning snack? The kitchen was dark and quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator.

  Leigh switched on the light. A note written on Aunt Kitty’s shopping list pad sat on the table. “I needed a fix. Don’t look for me anymore. M.B.”