Delta Belles

by Penelope J. Stokes

  But as the weeks passed, she discovered that the immediate gratification of a clean toilet or a freshly scrubbed kitchen floor could do nothing to remove the taint of guilt and shame. She had thought it would go away, once she and Trip were honest about their relationship, once they were married. But the marriage was a sham, and she knew it. For the first time in years, she recalled her childhood Sunday school lessons and understood why Judas had gone out and hanged himself.

  It wasn’t that she regretted marrying Trip. They’d had no choice, really. But it was the way she had married him—the haste, the vain attempts at explanation, the expression on Lacy’s face when they had finally told her.

  At first it had been a game, a competition with her sister that Lauren won hands down. Experience had been on her side, after all. She knew what Trip Jenkins really wanted and how to give it to him. Poor Lacy was depending on charm and personality and emotional connection. All Lauren had to do was throw out the bait and reel him in. No contest.

  After that bittersweet seduction during spring break, Trip continued to see Lacy—to let her down easy, he claimed. But he also met secretly with Lauren every chance he got. There was something intensely stimulating about the forbiddenness of their liaisons, and the sex was, frankly, incredible. The back seat of Trip’s Corvair turned out to be horribly cramped and uncomfortable, and since neither of them could afford a motel room, they got very creative. A blanket in the woods behind the college maintenance building. The fourth-floor stacks in the library. Occasionally, on weekends when most of the fraternity brothers were out of town, they sneaked into Trip’s frat house. Once they did it in the laundry room of Lauren and Lacy’s dorm—an experience a bit too nerve-wracking for Lauren, although Trip seemed to find the danger arousing.

  Gradually an unsettling realization formulated itself in Lauren’s mind—the awareness that her relationship with Trip was turning out to be just like her relationship with Steve Treadwell and the others who had gone before him. Mostly about sex, with little else to attract them. All the things she had been so jealous of in Lacy’s relationship with Trip—the emotional intimacy, the sense of knowing one another, the communication—seemed to be missing.

  And something else was missing too. Her period. She couldn’t recall when it was supposed to come in March. By April she was paying attention. By May, with graduation fast approaching, she was sure.

  And so the confrontation with Lacy, the hurry-up wedding, the miserable apartment, the scrambling to make ends meet. And the boiling in her gut that never seemed to subside.

  ALL THAT FIRST SUMMER Trip worked on a construction site to support them. By the time law school started in September, with Lauren’s last trimester drawing near, they moved to a better apartment, a place with south-facing windows and a second tiny bedroom for the baby.

  But they weren’t talking. They weren’t having sex. Trip seemed morose and distant much of the time. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe he was being sensitive to her “condition.” Maybe he didn’t find her attractive, with her bulging abdomen and heavy breasts. Lauren tried to push the constant worry to the back of her mind. It was going to be all right. Somehow it would work out.

  And then, in December, with Trip’s constitutional law final looming the next morning, her water broke at three in the morning.

  Trip had come to bed less than an hour ago, but he was sound asleep. She reached over to wake him, and a memory raked through her. For a moment she watched him just as she had watched him that spring day nine months ago, the first time they…

  The first contraction hit her hard, and Trip, startled awake at the sound of her cry, sat bolt upright, dazed and confused.

  “Is something wrong with the baby? Should I take you to the hospital?”

  “No. Yes,” she croaked between gasps. “It’s time.”

  The next few minutes were utter chaos. Trip hopped around the apartment trying to pull on his jeans with one hand and brush his teeth with the other, while Lauren put back on the only clothes that still fit her. As she waddled toward the front door Trip found his lost keys by stepping on them with his bare foot. “Damn!” he yelled, and Lauren, despite herself, laughed.

  It was like an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show. Just as Trip helped her into the car, she remembered the suitcase sitting in the hall closet, the one she had packed diligently a month ago, just in case. He ran back in to get it and returned carrying his old bowling ball bag. She didn’t bother to tell him.

  As they pulled out of the parking lot, another contraction hit, and Trip slammed on the brakes in response.

  “Just go !” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Is the baby all right?” he demanded.

  “The baby’s fine. But you won’t be unless you get me to the hospital now!”

  Trip apparently knew better than to argue with a woman in labor. He ran seven stop lights and broke every speed limit getting her to the hospital.

  They needn’t have hurried. By the time they got her admitted into the hospital, the contractions had slowed down. At seven thirty, assured by the OB nurse that first babies take a long time coming, Trip left the hospital and went to take his exam.

  Throughout the early hours of labor, Lauren lay alone in the hospital room crying, but not from the physical pain. She had never felt so alone in her life. She didn’t blame Trip for leaving— law schools didn’t reschedule exams for everyday events like babies being born. But her mother wasn’t here to assure her that everything would be all right. Her father wasn’t here to pace the waiting room. Her sister wasn’t here to hold her hand.

  And Trip had asked, “Is the baby all right?” Not “Are you all right?”

  She wasn’t all right. She had never been less all right in her life.

  As the contractions quickened and strengthened, Lauren prayed with every breath that Trip would love this baby and that, in loving his child, he could find a way to love her too. But four hours later, when the doctor laid the infant in her arms, she gazed down at his innocent face and knew she was lost. He was not fair and blond like herself, like Trip, but olive-skinned with a thick mass of dark hair.

  Like Steve Treadwell.

  “His name?” the nurse asked, her pen poised over the birth certificate.

  “Thomas,” Lauren choked out. “Thomas Edward Jenkins IV.”

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?” Trip shouted. “You lied to me!”

  At least he had waited to confront her. When Trip had arrived at the hospital, bleary-eyed and disheveled from his exam, she was still clutching the bundle and sobbing. He took the baby from her, kissed the red and wrinkled forehead, and uttered not a single word about the obvious truth that his infant namesake, whom they called Teddy, was not his biological son.

  But now that they were home, the anger that had been building for days could no longer be contained.

  “You intentionally deceived me, tricked me into marrying you, lying to me—”

  “I didn’t lie,” Lauren repeated with an edge of desperation in her voice. “Not deliberately, anyway. I thought he was your baby, Trip, I really did. I had broken it off with Steve the week before spring break, but—”

  “I should have guessed.” Trip ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Steve always bragged to everyone about his conquests. But when you got pregnant, it never even entered my mind that the child was his.”

  “Me neither,” Lauren mumbled.

  “I mean, if I’d known …” His voice trailed off.

  “If you’d known, you’d have done what?” Lauren shouted. “You’d have dumped me and married my sister, after all? You’d have pretended this never happened? Or you’d have kept meeting me in secret, screwing me behind everyone’s back?”

  Her yelling woke the baby in the next room, and the child began to cry. “I didn’t lie,” Lauren repeated over the squalling. “I didn’t know. Not until…”

  She went to retrieve the baby and sank wearily into the rocking chair her mother had bought for them. Tri
p flung himself onto the sagging sofa. Lauren lifted her T-shirt, exposed a breast, and began feeding the infant. Little Teddy made soft sucking sounds as he nursed.

  Lauren looked up at Trip, who appeared to deflate before her eyes. It seemed as if his anger had been the only thing keeping him upright and moving, and once it drained out of him, he was left looking empty and tired. He stared at the baby for a long time. Neither of them spoke.

  When Teddy finished nursing, Trip took him from his mothers arms and cuddled him close. The baby stirred in his sleep and smacked his tiny lips.

  “Are you going to tell Steve?” he asked quietly.

  Lauren blinked at him. “And what? Ask him for child support? Divorce you and demand that he marry me? Not a chance.” She bit her lip. “What are you going to do?”

  Trip stared at the baby in his arms. “I’m going to do what I promised,” he said at last. “I’m going to finish law school, get my degree, support my family. I’m going to be this little boy’s daddy.”

  HE HAD KEPT THAT PROMISE, and then some.

  Trip Jenkins turned out to be a wonderful man who adored his son. He taught the boy to throw a football, to ride a bike, to stand up to bullies, to be kind to the kids in school whom everyone else teased. He adored being a dad. But he was not Ted’s father.

  That knowledge, however, never stopped Trip from loving him—loving with fierce depth and frightening power. And now the boy was growing up to be smart and generous and handsome, even at the awkward, gangly age of fourteen. Ted might have inherited Steve Treadwell’s looks, but his character was the result of nurture rather than nature.

  Lauren looked out the window at her husband’s back as he sat on the park bench at the edge of the koi pond. Rain was falling, pocking the surface of the dark waters, but he didn’t seem to care.

  Trip had built the pond himself. It was eight feet across, crafted of stone in an irregular kidney shape, with a small waterfall that rushed over the rocks and aerated the pool. A couple of water lilies floated on the surface, and beneath them, in the dim cold greenness, three lazy koi perpetually eased back and forth. Papa Bear, the largest of the three, was a Showa Sanke, red and black and white with a pattern just above his dorsal fin that looked like the state of Florida. The other two were dubbed, predictably, Mama Bear and Baby Bear.

  Whenever Trip needed to work things out, he retreated to the waterfall pond, to the silent fish. Lauren watched him now, hunched over, oblivious to the rain.

  What was he doing out there? What was he thinking?

  She wondered. But she had learned not to ask questions.

  Especially if she wasn’t sure she’d like the answers.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE TIES THAT BIND

  HILLSBOROUGH, NORTH Carolina

  JUNE 1969

  The bus left Hillsborough at midnight, heading west. For an hour or more, Lacy sat next to the window staring into the darkness. Every now and then a car would pass, its headlights glaring into her eyes and making her squint. But for the most part, all she could see was her own reflection, the dim image of a pale, tear-streaked face, a shaken young woman fleeing for her life.

  She had no idea where she was going, only that she had to get away. As far away from North Carolina as possible. As far away from them.

  Mother and Daddy had tried to reason with her. It didn’t make sense, just to take off for parts unknown when she had a job waiting for her at Hillsborough High. What would she do? How would she live? Why couldn’t she just accept what had happened and go on with her life, find someone else? They weren’t condoning what Lauren had done, certainly, but she was Lacy s sister. And family was family, no matter what.

  But Lacy was adamant. She was determined to leave, and nothing they could say or do would stop her. In the end, Daddy had given her some money to tide her over and Mother had stood crying in the depot as the bus pulled out.

  The thrumming of the tires against pavement lulled her, and for a while she slept with her head leaning against the glass. When she awoke, the seat next to her was occupied.

  “Where are you going?” the woman asked when Lacy turned in her direction.

  At first Lacy didn’t answer. She didn’t want a seatmate, didn’t want to have to talk to anyone. And yet this woman, who looked to be a few years older than Lacy, had a kind face.

  “I have no idea,” Lacy answered candidly. “I’m not exactly going to anywhere; it’s more like I’m going from. ” Tears welled up in her eyes and she turned her head back toward the window.

  The woman laid a hand on her arm—the lightest of touches, a brief warmth—and then took it away. They sat in silence for a while as Lacy cried. When Lacy began rummaging in her bag for another tissue, the woman handed her one with a soft smile. “I’m Alison Rowe, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Lacy muttered. “Lacy Cantrell.” She sighed and resigned herself to small talk. She looked down at the woman’s hand, which bore a small diamond solitaire and a gold band. “What about you? Where are you headed?”

  “Home to Kansas City.”

  “Is your husband there?” Alison glanced up with a startled expression, and Lacy pointed. “I noticed your rings.”

  “My husband is … dead.” Alison bit her lip. “He was stationed at Fort Bragg before he was called up to Vietnam.” She exhaled heavily. “There didn’t seem to be any point in staying after….”

  “I’m—I’m really sorry,” Lacy managed. “When did this happen?”

  “A couple of months ago. I had to pack up the house and sell everything.”

  Something was bothering Lacy, and it took a minute or two to put her finger on what it was. “If you came from Fort Bragg, you were on the bus when I got on.”

  Alison nodded. “I was sitting a few rows back. I saw you crying. Looked like you might use some companionship.” She appraised Lacy in the dim light. “You’re very young to be setting off cross country by yourself with no destination in mind.”

  Lacy hadn’t thought she wanted company, but clearly Alison Rowe was a woman who knew how to listen. And once the floodgates were opened a crack, everything came flowing out.

  All through the night they talked. Alison told Lacy about her husband, Richard, who had, the army reluctantly told her, been killed by friendly fire. About growing up in Missouri. About her family—a mother, brother, and two sisters—in Kansas City. Lacy told Alison about Lauren and Trip, about her plans to marry Trip and teach at Hillsborough High School after graduation. About her sister’s betrayal. About her anger and bitterness, and the need to get as far away as possible, to put the whole thing behind her forever.

  To Lacy’s surprise, it helped a little just to be able to talk about her pain. Alison understood suffering. And there was no risk in telling her the whole sordid mess. Once this bus ride was over, she’d never see the woman again.

  But Alison had other ideas.

  “Why don’t you come to Kansas City with me?” she said as they ate breakfast at a small depot somewhere in Tennessee. “My brother is on the school board; he can probably get you a job. You can stay with me at my mom’s house until you can afford a place of your own.”

  It was an extravagantly generous offer, and before she realized quite what she was doing, Lacy said yes. What difference did it make, anyway, where she ended up—as long as it was far away from her sister and her ex-fiancé and the memory of their treachery and deception?

  IT TOOK A LONG TIME for Lacy to emerge from the emotional wreckage of Lauren and Trip’s betrayal. Like the victim of some natural disaster—earthquake, fire, flood—she wandered about in a fog, aimless, bracing herself for the aftershocks, for another explosion or a second rush of rising water.

  She went on with life, certainly. She got her master’s degree and established herself as a popular teacher at the high school where Alison taught literature. She dated a variety of eligible men, had even come close to being engaged once or twice. On the surface, anyway, she got along pretty well.

  Ye
ars passed—two years. Five years. Ten. Twelve.

  And in all that time she’d had no contact with her sister. She had kept in touch with her mother and father, of course, had written letters and talked to them on the telephone occasionally, but it was easier to keep things superficial when she didn’t have to see them face to face.

  Only once had she visited—in Christmas of 1982, when Mama had called to tell her that Lauren and Trip were spending the holidays in Dallas with Trip’s parents. And the moment she set foot over the threshold of her childhood home, she knew coming back to Hillsborough had been a mistake.

  A huge one.

  On the mantel in the living room stood several framed photographs. Lauren holding an infant in her arms. Lauren and Trip with a dark-haired three-year-old at a birthday party. Trip with the same boy, a few years older, carrying fishing poles and holding up a large brook trout. School photos of the child as he grew, the metamorphosis of baby to toddler to disheveled boy to gangly preteen.

  Lacy felt a numbness creep into her chest, and on wooden legs she made her way over to the photographs. “This is Ted, I assume,” she managed to say. She peered at the picture of Lauren with the baby. Her own mirror image stared back at her. This should have been her photo. Her baby. Her life.

  Somehow she forced herself through three days of torture. It was obvious her parents were attempting to be sensitive, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t keep from talking about their grandson—what a bright boy he was, how well mannered and considerate. What wonderful parents Lauren and Trip were.

  By the time Lacy got on the plane back to Kansas City, her nerves were shredded raw. She tried to sleep on the flight, but every time she closed her eyes she saw that picture of Lauren holding the infant Ted in her arms.

  Alison met her at the gate and followed her down to baggage claim. “So, how was it?”

  “Don’t ask.” Lacy dragged her suitcase off the carousel. “Can we go get something to eat? I’m starving.”

  They drove through a light snow to the Fireside Grille, a restaurant that specialized in steaks and burgers. Lacy ordered a prime rib sandwich on crusty French bread, but once the order arrived she found herself unable to eat.