“Okay. Here we are.” Mr. Rhodes pulled into the bright parking lot and just as discreetly as it had found me, Dean’s hand disappeared. I clutched the plastic petal in my pocket and tried to think of some topic to start with Misty that could get and keep her talking. “Do you remember the name of that real sad movie we watched where the black girl who had been pretending to be white was chasing after her mama’s funeral at the end?”
“Imitation of Life,” she said, eyes eager as always when she talked about movies. Her favorites were the tear-jerkers, anything from Stella Dallas to Old Yeller to Splendor in the Grass; she read T.V. Guide faithfully. Stella Dallas was my favorite, and if I ever felt like working up a good cry, all I needed do was picture Barbara Stanwyck in those old clunky shoes as she hung on the iron fence and peered in the window at the daughter she’d let go. It sent a sudden chill through me to imagine myself as the daughter, Angela coming to our house to see me. And you’re finally going to meet your cousin, my dad had said that day we went to Ferris Beach; she’s going to love you. / remember that day well, she had just said about my birthday.
“Madame X is a good one. So is Backstreet,” Mo said, and pushed open the door. “Misty, get me a Huskee Junior, some fries, and a chocolate shake,” she said. “Thomas, what do you want?” Mr. Rhodes gave us his order too, and then the two of them went to sit and wait at a table. They picked a big one in the corner of the room, so we had windows on both sides and could see all the cars that circled the building. Madame X was the one when the mother was forced by the evil mother-in-law to leave home, never to see her child again, but to be thought of as dead. Suddenly there were so many possibilities and I wanted to pull Misty home and into the solitude of her room that very minute and start slowly at the very beginning, telling her everything I knew, and then the two of us would sit there and put it all together.
Dean sat across from me, and two times I felt his foot press down on the toe of my boot, and I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not. In the fluorescent light, he looked very pale, his long dark lashes making him look fragile, almost feminine like some kind of little foreign doll. His eyes were the shade of Mo’s, that deep blue that almost looked violet in the right light, Liz Taylor eyes, my father had once remarked, to which Mrs. Poole had huffed and puffed and looked around in disbelief. My eyes were dark like my father’s; my hair looked auburn in certain lights.
“Kate?” Mo was looking at me with those dark-blue eyes. I felt the pressure letting up on my toe as Dean leaned back in his chair and waved a french fry back and forth through ketchup. “Does your cousin visit often?” She was sitting with her legs apart, hands on top of her thighs, while Mr. Rhodes’ arm rested on her shoulder; he toyed with the material of her collar. “I’ve never seen her visiting y’all before.”
“No, she doesn’t come often.” At the risk of making Dean mad, I pulled my feet up close under my chair. I could not concentrate on him touching me and Mo talking about Angela at the same time. “But you do know her?”
“Well, I’ve seen her,” Mo said. “I don’t really know her.”
“What’s her name?” Mr. Rhodes asked and toyed with the chain around his neck. It was one of those broken charms that tells how you’ll be reunited with one another one day. Misty had told me that her mother had the other half in her jewelry box, that they had given those to each other when they got married. Mo’s stomach moved and Mr. Rhodes’ attention went there instead.
“Angela,” I said. “Angela Burns.”
“Angela.” He stared down at Mo’s stomach and then shook his head. “I don’t know. How do you know her?”
“I don’t really,” Mo said, and gently lifted Mr. Rhodes’ hand from her stomach. “I’ve just seen her around, talked in the grocery-store line or something. I always assumed she was married?” She looked at me for an answer, and I shrugged, said that I had never heard if she was; I was embarrassed by my ignorance of my own relative. It seemed to me that Mo was relieved when I said that Angela had already left, but I couldn’t tell for sure because she quickly changed the subject. I told her that if she or Mr. Rhodes did remember knowing Angela to tell me, and she said oh yes, she sure would. We had only ridden about three blocks when she said she wasn’t feeling very well and thought we better get home. Peter, Paul, and Mary were singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and all I could think about was Angela; I could see her singing that song, leaving someone behind. Maybe on this very night that’s what she had done; maybe she had come to tell my dad that she was leaving. Maybe she had left me. Maybe that’s why my mother and I weren’t close like Mo and Misty. Maybe she wasn’t really my mother; the thought made me feel both guilty and exhilarated. I felt Dean’s hand groping around my right side, thumping my ribcage like I might be a melon. Hold me like you’ll never let me go.
Before midnight the Rhodeses went to the hospital. The last thing Mo said before leaving was that we should not sit up all night. She didn’t say that Misty and I should go over to my house rather than stay there unchaperoned; she just said to think of her, they’d call soon with a Buddy or a Holly, and then she went into her old joking of Maybe Baby, That’ll Be the Day, Well Allright. “Unplug the tree lights and the reindeer before you go to bed!” she called, and they were gone. Misty and I stood in the picture window and watched them drive off, Mr. Rhodes not even stopping at the stop sign at the corner there by the cemetery.
“Hot damn,” Misty whispered, her eyelids still all glittery green to match her crushed-velvet outfit. She had lately read that redheads should wear lots of green, and though I hadn’t told her yet, I’d already heard at least one person in school refer to her as the Leprechaun of Samuel T. Saxon. “Now we can go watch movies. Ronald has been giving me the eye.” I didn’t tell her that Dean had been giving me the foot, the hand, and the eye. Instead I started talking about Angela, trying to work my way up to this new thought I’d had, this whole theory of my birth and adoption, but Misty kept interrupting, turning on the radio, then off, TV on and then off; she was so excited that she couldn’t even look at me for more than a couple of seconds before she was up and moving all around.
“We’re going out,” Dean called, and Misty ran into the other room. They were going out the side door.
“Where? Where are you going?” She stood there, hands on her hips. “What if Mama calls? What if they need us?”
“She ain’t gonna have it right this second.” Dean looked at me, then looked down. “We don’t want to hang out with y’all anyway. What’re you gonna do, play on the telephone?” He made his voice high and girly sounding, one hand held limply in front of him. I was relieved. I had tried to imagine sitting in the dark living room with the glow of the Christmas lights, holding hands with Dean while Misty and Ronald watched TV in the other room.
“We might go with you,” Misty said, but finally just shooed them away, locked the side door and turned back to me. “What do you think?” she asked. “Does he like me or what?” I shrugged, shook my head. I had not heard Ronald utter one word other than a quick “bye.” “Well, let’s think of what we’ll do when they get back. I know.” She clasped her hands and laughed that hyena laugh. “Let’s short-sheet their beds.” It was clear that with all the excitement, Misty was not going to be in the mood for any graveyard talk.
By the time we had done every old practical joke in the book, popped popcorn, and not gotten scared when we heard Dean and Ronald outside scratching on the window screens, Mr. Rhodes had called to say that Misty had a brother. Buddy Jefferson Rhodes, seven pounds and two ounces. We went outside and stood in the carport until Ronald and Dean saw us and came over from near the parking side of the cemetery.
“It’s a girl!” Misty shouted and danced around, her arms lifted as she twirled, now wearing a heavy flannel gown and thick chenille robe. I was still in my clothes as I sat on the step and watched her leaping over the oil spot in her quilted bedroom shoes, her hair pulled back with a pink hairband. The excitement of the baby, combined
with sitting up until the wee hours, had made her no longer care what Ronald thought about her appearance. “Her name is Cassandra Melissa Clarissa Patricia Inez lona Rhodes and she weighed”—Misty slung her arms around Dean’s neck and squeezed—“fifteen pounds and four ounces.”
“Wow.” Ronald stood there staring and shaking his head. “You don’t believe that, do you?” Misty asked, her blue eyes wide and clear as she stepped right in front of the boy and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. “Well, if you believe that I have a sister with that name and weight, then you should believe that I did not kiss you just now.” Ronald was standing there moving his head up and down as if he was having to think back through everything she had just said. Misty had said he liked to smoke pot, and it seemed maybe that was part of his problem. I was watching them and didn’t even notice Dean standing right beside me until I felt his hand on my waist.
“You have a baby brother,” I said without looking up. “Buddy Jefferson Rhodes.”
“Thanks,” he said, and reached inside to flip off the yellow light. I heard Misty blurt, “What,” and then stop, maybe deciding that she wanted to be in the dark with Ronald. Again, Dean found my hand and held it while we watched Misty dancing circles around Ronald. He was laughing and just trying to keep up with where she was. “Now, what’s the baby’s name?” he asked again. I hoped Misty would not venture out into the street where Mrs. Poole or my mother might look out and see her dancing in her long pink bathrobe, which did not go with her hair.
I could feel Dean leaning in closer to me, and I knew that if I turned my head to the side he would kiss me. It was just that easy and yet, it was like my neck went rigid, like I could not bend. I reminded myself of my mother when she did not give in to those obnoxious peck peck pecks my father gave her. I let my hand go completely limp, maybe the worst thing you could do to a fifteen-year-old boy who had gotten up the nerve to make a move, especially if you are a thirteen-year-old girl who has never been approached by anyone who might even kind of like you.
I thought of Angela, her head leaned against the chain of the swing, her eyes distant and dreamy without a care in the world. I imagined her riding away, her friend at the wheel, his cap pulled low, the windshield coated in the thick salty dampness as they sang along with the radio, wind rushing past open windows.
Dean tried to pull me into him, but I froze and stayed that way until he went inside and slammed the door. It was after three in the morning, the moon at an angle I rarely saw. I pulled the pink plastic petal from my pocket and held it in my open palm. It would remind me of the street so empty and quiet, how I crouched there in the darkness of the cemetery, the sudden fear that came over me like a chill; it would remind me of Dean holding my hand and pressing my foot, of Misty deliriously dancing about in her bathrobe. It would remind me of the birth of Buddy Jefferson Rhodes, and it would remind me of Angela waiting in the porch swing, how maybe her heart quickened as she saw me from a distance, how she stood as I made my way down the sidewalk and then up the steps, how she reached out her arms and hugged me to her.
Seven
It was New Year’s Day when Angela called, her voice frantic when I lifted the receiver. “Fred?” she called. “Fred, is that you?” I could hear noise in the background, music and voices, as I held my hand over the mouthpiece and called for my father. He was stretched out on the sofa watching football, the volume of the set turned completely down so that he could hear his album of wildlife sounds. One minute he was at a bowl game, the next he was in a jungle with loud bird sounds, like chekaw chekaw. My mother sat at the end of the sofa, with my father’s feet propped on her lap as she worked on a needlepoint piece that she would soon sew into yet another pillow to decorate the wicker settee on the sunporch. She had quite a collection, all Victorian floral designs on a black background. When my father got up to answer the phone, she stopped her work to watch and listen, motioned for me to turn down the long-winded blast of an elephant and the rapid chatter of a band of monkeys.
His back was to us as he stood there twisting the phone cord. “Who was it?” my mother asked, and stretched her legs out on the coffee table, an unusual pose for her, a vacation pose. There were about three times during the year, New Year’s Day being one of them, when my mother declared she was on vacation and was not going to do anything except cook, which she did not consider work, but hobby. It was on these rare days that she announced she’d like to have a drink, more specifically a beer, and then proceeded to have one; now she sat watching my father, a can of Schlitz neatly bound in a Christmas napkin lifted to her mouth. I shrugged but she kept looking at me, waiting for more.
“It was real loud,” I said, “like maybe there was a party or something, or maybe it was a pay phone.”
“I see,” she said. “Well, dramatic things always seem to happen around the holidays.”
“Like what?” I was tired of the cryptic messages that she so often delivered; messages that seemed not meant for me but instead simply her thoughts escaping.
“Like what? Well, let’s see.” She took another sip and leaned her head back against the couch. “Well, someone could do something dramatic like run away and get married, or maybe drink too much and drive into a parked car.” She laughed sarcastically, eyes on my father as he stepped back into the room, his face flushed as he nervously raked the fingers of his right hand through his hair. I was still standing by the stereo, which was now emitting only faint growls and chatters, as I waited to hear more, the answers to the riddles.
“If only Theresa Poole could see you now,” he said and laughed, though it was easy to see through his attempt at lightening the mood. “She’d at least suggest that you have some sherry or perhaps a bit of port.” He crooked his finger, another attempt at being funny but it was clear that he was falling flat.
“And what if she could see me?” Mama asked, and drained the can. I knew as well as she did that Mrs. Poole was out of town and there was no chance that she’d drop by as she so often did. It occurred to me then that that was the system to timing my mother’s beer and needlepoint vacations; she took a vacation when Mrs. Poole was out of town. “So, who was on the phone?”
“Angela.” He said her name while staring out the window, watching the bare limbs of a tree moving back and forth, two squirrels collecting twigs to jungle sounds. “She’s in a bit of trouble.”
“Told you.” Mama looked at me and nodded, then raised her eyes to his sudden look of surprise. “Yes, that’s right. I was telling Katie how the holidays always have a really dramatic effect on some people. You know, it’s the suicide season; wreck your car, run away and get married.”
“And all those are one and the same?” He sat down beside her, his arm reaching behind her head, finger stroking her cheek. “Suicide and marriage?”
“She tried to kill herself?” I asked, having not yet had time to absorb the fact that apparantly she had gotten married, that she had run into a parked car.
“Of course not,” my father said; for the first time I’d ever seen, there was a huge ink spot on the pocket of his crisp white shirt. “And she barely bumped her car that time, Cleva.”
“It was our car,” she said and then turned to me, her elbow propped such that it looked as if she were toasting with that Christmas-wrapped Schlitz can, like some kind of Statue of Liberty parody. “And she thinks far too much of herself to ever commit suicide.”
“And thank God for that,” he said, motioning for me to lift the needle which had reached the end of the safari sounds. “Just turn it off,” he said when he saw me flip over the album to read what was on the other side, “Swamp Sounds.” “She wants to move out. She has no place to go.”
“And so you said, ‘Why don’t you stay here with us for awhile.’ Right?” She put the can on the table beside her and stood up, smoothed back her hair and began straightening the room. Mauve and violet wool threads lay in a jumble where she had been sitting. “Happy New Year.”
“
I told her I’d ask you.” He stood and grabbed her by the wrists, waited for her to look at him. I kept waiting for one of them to ask me to leave, to send me on some scavenger hunt of an errand, but they didn’t. “Look, the guy has threatened her.” He lowered his voice, leaned in until their foreheads were touching. “Physically threatened her.”
“What guy? Her husband?” Again, I pictured the man on Ferris Beach. A bright summer day, but he was dressed in long pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt, hat pulled low on his forehead, a flash of silver like a chain or a belt buckle.
“Yes, her husband,” my father said quietly. “I think this marriage is over. It was a big mistake and Angela knows that now.”
“Why didn’t anybody ever tell me . . .” Before I could finish my thought, my mother was going on and on in an exaggerated way. Why and who ever would’ve thought that this marriage, this union crafted in heaven and founded on the floor of a bar and grill and/or bowling alley would come to an end?
“Can I bring her home?” He spoke in a slow deliberate voice. “Just until she can find something else.” He lifted her chin and they locked stares; I was holding my breath, “Swamp Sounds” still in my hands. When she nodded, gave into his embraces, I reached for the paper sleeve and put the album away. “It’ll be okay this time, honey,” he said and then was gone, reaching under the sofa for his shoes, grabbing his coat from the hall closet. “I don’t know when we’ll get here,” he yelled. “I’ll call you if it looks like it’s going to be real late.” We both stood quietly, listening to the distant sound of his engine turning over. She watched the silent football game on TV for a few seconds. “You better punt,” she said, and then waited, nodding as she saw her advice put into action.
Ferris Beach Page 9
