There I go, smiling again, eyes glued on Clyde. With his lazy smirk, he watches me right back, his eyes dancing over my face as if he’s memorizing each plane, each curve, each freckle.
Love comes in at the eye.
A William Butler Yeats poem jumps to the forefront of my mind, and I’m happy Clyde stands across from me, that he came here for me.
“Well, what’s going on here?” A looming figure appears beside us. A head taller than Clyde. Square chin. Prominent brows. Light, shaggy hair.
“Roy?” Disbelief and confusion pummel me like a rainstorm.
“Hello, Bonnie.”
I glance ’round, as if answers are hanging in the air. But it’s the same setting as always: a few trees, a few classmates, a laundry service and shoe store ’cross the street. “What are you doing here?”
Clyde angles himself in front of me.
Roy’s once handsome eyes penetrate into me. “Him? You went from me to this lowlife?”
My mind races to keep up, not knowing how Roy recognizes Clyde, ’til I remember them sitting side by side, both watching me sing.
“I don’t think who Bonnie spends her time with concerns you anymore,” Clyde says, his tone even, dangerously even.
Before I can pin Roy with another question, he’s got his hands on Clyde’s chest. I stumble backwards, toppling onto the grass on my bottom. Their shoving throws them onto the promenade, against the school’s steps. Roy lands on top of Clyde. His fist connects with Clyde’s cheek.
“Stop!” I scurry back to my feet, standing over them, and try to pull Roy off Clyde.
He knocks me away as if I were nothin’ more than a gnat, and I clutch the railing to keep from tumbling down the stairs.
I wipe the hair free from my face, backpedaling ’til I’m off the steps, disbelief still clouding my head. Roy’s here. But why? Why’s he back? Where’s he been?
Though the most important question right now is how I’m going to get Roy off Clyde. I call for help. Again and again. Only a few of my classmates remain, all keeping a safe distance away on the promenade, backing farther away when the fight moves to level ground.
“Stay away from her,” Clyde says, between his teeth.
“She’s my wife.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Roy growls, lunging at Clyde. Clyde twists, grabbing Roy’s coattails and throwing him to the ground. No hesitation, Roy is back on his feet, using the back of his hand to wipe blood from his lip. They circle each other, collide, arms intertwining like two bears in a fight.
“Enough!” I cry.
Neither of them pays me any mind. I run both hands through my hair, frantically look … scream … for help. No one ’round us does a thing. My heart leaps when I see two men jogging toward us. The sheen of their buttons and an emblem on their hats catches the afternoon light. I squint, cursing, realizing too late it’s the police responding to my calls.
“Clyde,” I whisper, panicked. “It’s the law.”
I’ve been a dumb Dora, screaming my head off when the police station is only a few blocks away.
Clyde’s head pops up, the skin ’round his eye already blue. His grip on Roy loosens. Roy punches him again, connecting with Clyde’s jaw. With my own fists, I pound on Roy’s back, my voice turning to sobs. “Stop it, Roy. You’ll hurt him.”
Two hands yank me back. The policeman releases me, grabs Roy. The other officer has Clyde’s arms behind his back before I can blink.
“Are you okay, miss?” the officer asks me.
“Yes,” I say, and once again wipe my hair from my face. I run my hands down my coat. “This man,” I say, and point to Roy, “attacked us.”
The officer tightens his grip on Roy. The other policeman releases Clyde, who immediately backs toward the grass.
Roy spares me the slightest of glances. It ain’t remorse I see. It’s calculation, as if Roy knows more ’bout Clyde than he’s let on.
“It ain’t me you want,” he says.
No. Every inch of me tenses.
“This here is Clyde Barrow.”
“Clyde Barrow?” parrots the officer who released him. He yanks a weapon from his belt.
Clyde merely holds up his hands.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the officer says. “Jacobs has been looking for you for quite some time.” He turns to his partner. “It’s always the women that lure ’em out of hiding.”
“No.” I quicken my steps toward Clyde.
“Stay where you are, miss,” the officer says to me.
I stop, though every part of me wants to latch on to Clyde’s hand again.
Run, I think.
Run, Clyde.
But he doesn’t. He stands there, his eyes on me, as the policeman cuffs him.
32
Under my covers, I stare through the darkness, the memory of the police hauling away Clyde stuck in my mind. He didn’t resist. He stayed, those hazel eyes trained on me. Yet—I roll onto my side, a sliver of the morning light seeping above the covers—Buck told me how Clyde put up a fight when he was arrested for stealing turkeys.
That arrest has stuck with him, Clyde said as much, but it can’t be why that officer has it out for him. It’s got to be bigger than that.
And all these thoughts and unknowns equate to me staying in bed, feeling up and down ’bout Clyde, when I should be out looking for a job. Ain’t that why I gave up school?
Buster’s sudden voice fills the house—an outburst. I slowly get out of bed, find Billie still sound asleep, Duke Dog curled in a ball at the bottom of her bed. I stretch my arms ’cross my body, feeling a tug of pain where my tailbone met the ground.
My feet bare, I pad into the living room to investigate. Buster runs his hand through his hair. The radio is angled toward him, the volume low.
“Buster, what’s wrong?”
An agonized-sounding growl escapes from my brother. “Do you even have to ask?” He heaves a sigh. “I got to stop listening, but I can’t. So many people are now in debt ’cause of me, ’cause the ‘powers that be’”—he mimes quotations in the air ’round the phrase—“told me the market was a sure thing.”
Our beat-up couch cushion sinks, angling me toward my brother as I sit beside him.
“I’d paint a pretty picture, sayin’ how investing was the key to wealth. Hate your factory job? No problem. Invest, and it’ll save you from your miserable lot.”
He slams his fist down, and I cover his hand with my own. But I’m angry, too—more than angry. Sullen. Roy went to Buster. He begged Buster for that pretty picture. Somehow, I’m the one left with all the broken pieces, when Roy’s been God knows where, doing God knows what. Is it wrong that I took pleasure in seeing Roy hauled away by the police yesterday?
“Buster, what are you—what are we—going to do now?”
His fist tightens. “Shit, I don’t know.”
A new worry surfaces, one beyond concerns for my own future. “Are you in danger? Are your clients going to come after you?”
“They’d be stupid to come anywhere near me. Most of my clients borrowed money from the bank to invest.” He gets up, starts pacing, eyes falling on the radio every few steps. “They come after me, they better come with a pocketful of cash to pay back the bank. I reckon their pockets are empty.”
I hear a knock on the door, and we both startle. My heart rate quickens at the possibility that it’s Clyde, or Blanche. Blanche said she’d let me know as soon as she heard anything ’bout Clyde from Buck.
“Sorry,” I say to Buster, and motion toward the door.
He nods, his attention returning to the radio.
As I touch the doorknob, I realize I’m still in my nightgown, but it doesn’t stop me from throwing open the door. My heart ticks even faster—but it’s ’cause Roy stands before me, in the same clothes as yesterday. “What the hell do you want?”
“Bonn, can I come in?”
“No,” I say. The cool air sends goose bumps up my arms, down my legs.
I cross my arms, hiding how the cold affects my breasts beneath my nightgown. “I already know what you’re going to say: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for gambling, for getting caught with a girl, for those horribly mean things I said to you. I’m even more sorry for leaving you for a goddamn year.’”
I leave out how my blood is also pumping ’cause he ratted out Clyde. I want to keep this ’bout us.
Roy sighs, scratches the scruff on his jawline. “But it’s true. I am sorry. You’ve got to believe me.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it, ambushing me yesterday like that.”
Buster’s footsteps stomp up behind me. I lay a hand on his arm, stopping him from storming past me.
“Buster,” Roy says, “tell your sister she has to believe me.”
My brother’s expression screams Not a chance, but he calmly says, “I think Bonnelyn can make decisions for herself.”
I smile at my brother before turning back to Roy. “I can talk for myself, too, but I reckon you’ve got it all wrong. Here’s what you should be sayin’: ‘I know there’s no explanation good enough for lying and cheating, for abandoning you, for putting you in a position where you had to walk away from what you want. So, I’m going to leave, for good this time.’”
“Yes. Yes to all of that, ’cept the part ’bout me leaving again.” He keeps his tired eyes down as he says, “This is the first place I came after the police let me go, the only place I wanted to go. I left last year ’cause pride clouded my judgment and made me say things I didn’t mean. Then I was scared you wouldn’t forgive me. I didn’t want to come back ’til I could give you the world. But the market took everything from me, and then some.” He looks up, sincerity in his eyes. “In that moment, I realized I could lose everything, but not you. I can’t lose you, Bonnelyn.”
I uncross my arms and widen the door’s opening. “So you’re done gambling? You’re done drinking, and cheating, and lying?”
Roy steps forward. “Yes. Yes, to all of it.”
“You’re ready to give me the world?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything, Bonnelyn.”
“Good,” I say. I open the door farther.
“Bonn?” my brother says.
I wave off Buster. “’Cause, Roy, whatever sweet girl you’re with next doesn’t deserve to be with the Roy Thornton I was foolish enough to marry.”
Using all my body weight, I slam the door closed in Roy’s face.
Behind me, Buster whispers, “Damn.”
I stand there, collecting my thoughts. I spent the past year wallowing over Roy, and for what? I loved Roy the boy. As a man and a husband, he leaves much to be desired. He only came back, pockets empty, ’cause he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t love me. He loves the idea of me.
Like how I once loved the idea of him. I know this now. Hell, I convinced myself I needed Roy. But I don’t. I slammed that door, and Roy’s return only punctuates how my heart is pulling me toward starting over with Clyde.
“Buster, watch the window. Let me know when Roy’s gone.”
I rush to my bedroom to put on clothes, any clothes. Billie sits up in bed, rubbing her eyes. I kiss her forehead, feeling euphoric. She gives me a funny look, probably being that I’m springing ’round the room.
“He’s gone!” Buster says from the other room.
I slide on a hat to hide my disheveled hair and race out the door, grabbing my bike.
With each cycle of my legs, I feel liberated. Clyde’s lyrics may’ve been ’bout how I saved him, but if I wrote my own, it’d be how people come into your life when you need ’em most, and save you back. You save each other, like a partnership. Nothin’ one-sided ’bout it.
I hop off my bike at the police station and lean against a fence ’cross the street. Clyde waited for me outside my school, and I’m going to wait for him now. Taking one deep breath after another, I tap my foot. If Roy was released not long ago, I reckon Clyde should be next. He’s got to be next.
But my shadow gets smaller and smaller, ’til I’m standing on it, and people taking their lunch breaks crowd the sidewalk. I lean left and right, maintaining a clear sight of the station’s door, and begin to second-guess that Clyde will be emerging. That officer, Jacobs, had been looking for him. What if they keep him?
Clyde walks out of the door, and I straighten, question forgotten. As if he was hoping I’d be waiting, his eyes—one blackened—immediately find mine from the other side of the street. I’m ’cross that street in a matter of seconds, cars be damned, and stop at the base of the station’s stairs.
Clyde strolls down, the laziest of smiles on his face. “My goodness, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
“I wish I could say the same for you.”
He hoots with laugher and tugs on his dirty shirt, then his wrinkled trousers. “I got nothin’ to hide from ya.”
That sentiment seeps deep into my bones, thinkin’ of the two-faced jerks from my past and how Roy is a real-life Jekyll and Hyde. I gently touch Clyde’s bruised cheek. “Are you hurt?”
“From the pigs inside? Nah. In fact, I woke with a smile on my face, happy I was there when Roy came back for you.”
My insides warm, and I impishly smack his chest. “Why didn’t you run from the police, you fool? I know ’bout your ‘heat rule.’”
Clyde wraps his arm ’round my shoulders and leads me back toward my bike. “That rule don’t apply to you, won’t ever. I wasn’t going anywhere ’til I knew you wouldn’t be left alone with Roy.”
The seriousness in Clyde’s voice stops me from smiling. That he stayed for me is exactly what I wanted to hear, needed to hear. But there’s more I need to hear. “Clyde, I have to know why, specifically, they were looking for you.”
Precious seconds pass while Clyde leads us out of the street, seconds when my confidence at coming here for Clyde deflates. He squares my shoulders to his, looks me straight in the eye. “I’ve looted some places ’round town, like the lumberyard. But—”
“But why?” That kind of theft shakes me more than cars. Automobiles are a luxury ’round here. Those people are doing all right for themselves. And Clyde gives ’em back when he’s done. “Why, Clyde?”
“Land costs a pretty penny, Bonnie.” He scratches his jawline. “I help my pa at the service station, but it’s not adding up. To put money away, I skim from businesses, ones that have sold out to the Man. Big corporations own over half of our country’s industry now. At least that’s what Buck says. He knows ’bout this stuff more than me. All I know is I’m hurtin’ for money more than them. They’ll be fine. One month where their books don’t balance. My family, though—they deserve a different type of life, away from here.” He pauses, as if he’s debating his next words, then says, “You serve illegal drinks. I took a little from the rich. Is it really all that different?”
Yes, I want to scream. But it’s not. We both did it for our families. We both did it to become more. And Clyde says he’ll stop. He’ll stop, without asking me to do the same.
“No,” I say, and my desire to be with Clyde overpowers my doubts. The distance between us seems inconsequential now. I walk into his chest, and his arms close ’round me. “Will they leave you alone now?”
Clyde sighs. “One can hope, ’cause big things await us, Bonnie.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I say into his chest, concentrating on the positive, not on Clyde being a target tomorrow, the next day, the next week.
“Anything.” He kisses the side of my head. “Anything awaits us.”
Clyde’s response is whimsical. It ain’t realistic, not with all I’ve worked for lying broken at my feet, but he makes me want to believe that anything is possible.
“Jobs?” I ask.
“I got something else in mind. The job hunt can wait one more day.”
I ain’t sure of that. I quit school to find a job. But it’s so tempting to get caught up in the whimsical with Clyde.
He kisses the side of my head again. “
How ’bout we have that supper?”
I pull back. “It’s lunchtime.”
“It’s going to take a few hours to get to the Gulf,” Clyde says matter-of-factly. “You’ve always wanted to go to the water, haven’t you?”
I grin. “Yeah?”
“Okay, well, let’s go.”
“Right now?”
“There’s no time like the present, Bonnie.”
I roll onto my toes, fully anticipating the trip with Clyde, along with all those other unnamed things that await us. But, before this moment passes us by, I say, “You’re exactly right. There is no time like the present.”
With Clyde’s shirt bunched within my hands, I pull him toward me. Slow, our kiss starts slow, then Clyde winds his hand ’round the nape of my neck, and I melt into him. When we part, breathless, remaining inches apart, the space between my legs still tingles.
* * *
Air whips at my hair, tossing it carelessly into my face, behind my shoulders, into Blanche’s face. She raises her arms above her head, lets out a holler—so reminiscent of the photo of her, with Buck driving.
“How much longer?” Blanche yells into the wind.
Buck shakes his head. “Four hours and fifty-five minutes.”
Blanche slumps down in the backseat of Big Bertha. I settle next to her, my teeth chattering, and meet Clyde’s lazy smile in the rearview mirror.
“We’ve only been on the road for five minutes?” she says.
I laugh, but I also think, Take your time. This is the very first time, in my nineteen years of being on this earth, I’ve gone beyond Cement City and Dallas.
And I have Clyde to thank for that, even if Blanche made it possible with her car. Had to figure she’d insist on going on the trip as well.
I try to absorb as much of the passing landscapes, the cityscapes, the neighborhoods, the open road as I can, happy Blanche also insisted on having the top down, despite the chill in the air.
Buck’s and Clyde’s voices drift back to me, arguing over the best route to take. Clyde holds up a map, pointing to his preferred path. I smirk, enjoying the scenery and the boys’ bickering. Though, after last night’s lack of sleep, worrying over Clyde in jail, along with the weight of facing life again after we return, it doesn’t take long before my eyes grow heavy.
Becoming Bonnie Page 27
