Evangeline (6 page)

He changed tactics, dragging her the opposite way, and was having success when Mother collapsed in a dead faint and ended up in the dirt.  

“Oh, no you don’t, woman,” Ted growled at her.  “Oh, no you don’t!”  He scooped her up like an invalid, stuffed her into the front seat and emphatically slammed the door.  “And nothing out of you,” he huffed at Angeline, pointing a warning finger as he ducked behind the wheel. 

Angeline stood outside her pickup and watched as the Caddy roared to life.  The tires spit dirt and the car started up the long driveway past the irrigation pond.  It seemed Mother was finally on her way to signing those papers, but just before making the turn onto County Line Road, the passenger’s door suddenly sprang open and the woman jumped out.  She hit the ground hard, rolled twice, hopped to her feet and began a mad dash for the farmhouse with arms flailing wildly. 

Angeline watched this strange drama unfold in slack-jawed amazement.  Mother had always been more of a shuffler, yet here she came at full gallop.  Who knew the woman could move that fast?  Certainly not her husband.  Ted was after her now, head craned out the driver’s-side window as he backed down the driveway in hot pursuit. 

Mother blew past Angeline, her eyes wide with panic, and vanished into the house just as the Eldorado skidded to a stop.  Ted slammed the car into park then bounded after her, yelling at Sister as he passed, “Your mother’s bat shit crazy, you know that?!”

The moment Angeline stepped through the front door and into the kitchen she could hear Stepfather bellowing from the second floor landing, “Goddammit, woman!  You will not do this to me!  You will not do this!”  When she moved to the foot of the staircase she could see him standing outside her bedroom, pounding the locked door and yanking at the knob in exasperation.  “Get your scrawny ass out here!  Do you hear me?!” 

When silence answered, Stumpy threw his shoulder against the door.  But all he did was hurt himself.  “Jesus H…”   the man cursed aloud.  

It was a standoff.  Mother wasn’t coming out and Stepfather wasn’t getting in.  She’d dodged that lawyer once again.  Ted turned to march back downstairs then checked his step at the sight of Angeline standing at the foot of the staircase.  He continued past her with a scathing look that dared her to open her mouth.  Personally I wanted to laugh in the bastard’s face, but my sister was smarter than me.  She knew Stepfather’s temper and had good reason to fear the man.

Out the front door he went, slamming it in anger behind him.  The house went quiet.  After a moment Angeline ascended the stairs to Mother’s door.  She heard a faint muttering from the other side and leaned closer to listen.  

“…restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit.  Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee…”

“He’s gone, muh-momma,” said Angeline. 

There was a brief silence before Mother answered, “Leave me be, child.”

Sister lingered a moment longer then slipped into her bedroom and quietly pressed the door shut.  Before that latch even clicked, I knew what she was after.  The girl made a beeline for the keepsake box resting atop the dresser and flipped it open.  Buried at the bottom was the hand-written list of Holt County pervies.  She unfolded it, took one look… and her body went cold. 

The name Harland Lee Wade had been crossed out.

Okay.  I admit it.  That was totally my bad.  At the time, still flush with success, scratching that pervie’s name from the list had felt so fucking right.  Now I realized I’d screwed up big time.  Angeline stood at the dresser, wracking her brains, trying to recall when she’d run a pen through that name.  But of course she had no memory of it.  Not so much as a shard.  As Sister was brooding over this, she caught sight of her reflection in the dresser mirror.

Friends, there was a time, back in the day, when Angeline sometimes pondered whether she was subletting space between her ears.  Pinning my ass down, however, had proved elusive, and eventually she’d tucked those nagging suspicions away. 

Well, now they were back-- with that one disturbing question again tapping at her mind…

Was she alone?

Leaning against the dresser’s edge, she looked closer at her reflection, staring hard and deep into her eyes.  I could feel Sister searching for me, thoughts probing like fingers through the dark and forgotten corridors of her mind.  Some other time I might have introduced myself.  But not on that day.  Oh, no.  She would have put a stop to my plans, and I couldn’t allow that.  So whenever the girl brushed too close, I shrank back just a little bit more until she finally grew frustrated and quit with a pounding headache.

I figured the crises had passed-- that I was in the clear again.  Only I thought wrong.  Instead of returning the pervie list to her keepsake box, Angeline did something totally unexpected.  She tore that paper to pieces. 

No, no, no, no, noooo!

I was too late.  The impulse had come so abruptly that I had zero chance to swerve her mind around it.  All I could do was watch helplessly as those tiny bits of paper went fluttering into the wastebasket.

Angeline never intende
d
to go to the Mohr’s on Friday night.  Her paralyzing social phobia made the notion totally implausible.  But after finishing
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
, she’d started reading
Pride and Prejudice
, and the deeper she ventured into Jane Austen’s novel, the more Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley began to resemble Mr. Caleb Quinn of Willowdale.  By the time she’d laid that romance aside, Sister’s resolve to stay home had crumbled and she found herself in the kitchen, whipping up a fresh batch of shortbread cookies. 

Around nine o’clock she checked her look in the mirror, decided there was nothing to be done, and headed out to the truck with those cookies covered on a plate with tinfoil.  The steady rain that had fallen throughout the day had finally passed and the heavens were clear, but the long driveway remained a muddy mess as Sister left the farmhouse under a waxing moon. 

From Hainesville it was a three mile straight shot up the County Oil Road to the Mohr’s house on the Knox County line.  When Angeline drove past that dilapidated Victorian, she noticed a small bonfire burning out front, surrounded by kids that had come to party hearty following the Friday night football game.  Vehicles were parked haphazardly along the roadside or in spots where the barbed wire circling the property had been torn away.  But rather than pull over and join them, Angeline lost her nerve and drove right on by without stopping. 

Disgusted by her cowardice, she thought about continuing to the Interstate, crossing the country and plunging herself into the Atlantic Ocean.  But gas was low, so instead she drove another quarter mile or so, turned the truck around and started back. 

On her second pass, instead of parking in front of the Mohr’s, she switched off the headlights and went bouncing into an open hayfield on the other side of the oil road.  She found a spot that afforded an open view of the house, then parked the truck and cranked down the window.  The faint twang of an acoustic guitar, the sound of drunken laughter and the sweet scent of fresh cut alfalfa came drifting into the cab.  The crop was harvesting late this year, Angeline thought, before shifting her attention to the fire.  

There was a small group of teens gathered there.  Most were boys, but a few girls had joined them, including one who was playing guitar and singing country.  From across the field Angeline recognized a few of the faces from Willowdale High, but the one she’d come to see wasn’t among them.  After waiting another half hour or so, she was thinking of taking her cookies and going home when Caleb came wandering out of the Mohr’s house wearing a sandstone colored Carhartt jacket and swigging a bottle of beer.

As he joined the others around the fire, a lissome girl wearing a straw cowboy hat and denim coat wrapped her arms around him and Angeline’s heart sank.  She recognized Susan Weaver, a senior at Willowdale and one of the prettiest girls at school.  If Weaver was the competition, stick a fork in Sister because she was as good as done. 

Coming to the Mohr’s was a mistake.  Angeline knew that now.  She turned the ignition key and shifted the truck into gear.  Only it wouldn’t budge.  The heavy rain had turned that hayfield into a quagmire and the pickup was spinning its wheels. 

She pressed the pedal to the floor, but that only spun those tires faster and sank the Ford deeper.  Angeline was freaking out now, pushing the motor hard in her desperate attempt to escape.  The kids around the fire must have heard the engine gunning and the sound of rubber whirring against mud because their heads were craning toward the hayfield.  One of the boys started walking that direction.

It was Caleb.

With growing panic, Sister watched him cross the oil road and enter the field.  She cranked up her window then floored the gas pedal again and again, trying to escape the hole she’d dug for herself.  It was all wasted effort, of course.  That F-100 was buried to the wheel wells, and before she knew it Caleb was shouting at her through the glass, “Hold up!  Hold up!  You’re making it worse!”

Angeline killed the engine, so mortified by her predicament that she couldn’t make eye contact with Caleb as he circled the pickup, nonchalantly sipping beer while checking the tires.  When he was done he tapped on the glass.  Angeline wanted to crawl into the glove compartment where she could die of acute embarrassment.  Instead she surrendered to the inevitable and rolled down the window.  It took every bit of courage just to look that boy in the eyes. 

“You’re stuck,” Caleb deadpanned. 

He milked the moment for as long as he could before cracking a smile. “Look, just leave it and come hang out.  We’ll get your truck out later.”  He swung open the door and extended his hand.  “C’mon, Angel,” he smiled. 

Angeline was slightly taken aback.  That was the name Father used to call her when she was young.  “My little Angel,” he’d say as he tucked her into bed. 

Caleb read Sister’s expression.  “Is it okay to call you Angel?”

Sister nodded and took his hand, stepping down onto the spongy earth.  As Caleb was about to close the door he sniffed the air.  “Something smells good in here,” he said, then spotted the plate of tinfoil wrapped cookies on the seat.  “Are those what I think they are?” 

He glanced at Sister.  She felt the blush coming.

“For me?” he asked.

Angeline nodded.  Now her cheeks were burning.

“That’s really nice of you, Angel.  Thanks,” said Caleb, taking the cookies and closing the door.  “Mind if I share these?”  She followed his nod toward the fire and felt a sudden grip in her chest.  “C’mon.  I’ll introduce you,” he said, starting that direction.

Angeline didn’t budge.  Her heels were dug in like a calf being dragged to a branding fire.  The girl was as stuck as her pickup.  When Caleb noticed this he stopped and said to her, “Hey, if you’re worried about my brother, don’t be.  He’s gone to the reservoir just like I told you.  These are good people, Angel.  I promise.” 

He gestured for her to follow and started for the road again.  “Better come quick if you want a cookie,” he called over his shoulder. 

Angeline’s overwhelming instinct was to flee.  But really, where could she run except from herself?  And standing in a muddy hayfield all night was hardly an option.  So with a deep breath and a hard shove (no thanks necessary) she got her feet moving and trailed Caleb across the oil road. 

When she arrived at the fire, the boy was already handing out the shortbread cookies.  “Hey everyone, listen up.  This is Angeline,” he announced, pointing out Sister who stood at the fringe of firelight with eyes lowered.  The girl looked as if she expected to get bombarded with her own baked goods.  Instead Caleb’s friends greeted her like one of their own.

“Come closer, Angeline. We don’t bite,” said the girl with a guitar in her lap. 

Sister took a few tentative steps toward the fire.  Someone thrust an unopened bottle of beer into her hand and Susan Weaver gushed, “Oh, my God, these cookies are awesome.”

“Excellent for the munchies,” agreed a tall, gangly kid holding his breath.  In one hand was a half-eaten cookie, in the other a burning joint which he offered to Angeline.  “Next time bake some of this shit inside,” he said, exhaling a puff of smoke.  “Go on… take a hit.”

What the boy had in his hand looked a little like the cigarettes Father used to smoke.

“It’s weed,” explained Caleb from the other side of the fire.  “Marijuana.” 

Angeline had heard of this marijuana.  Deputy Ted claimed it caused irreversible brain damage.  That didn’t sound like such a good deal, so Sister declined with a shake of the head.  The skinny kid shrugged and passed the joint along to Susan Weaver. 

“So where do you go to school?” asked Susan, before taking a drag.

“Wwwwillowdale,” Angeline answered, pushing the word out like a painful turd.

“Willowdale?” the skinny kid remarked.  “No shit?  What year?”

Sister held up three fingers.

“You’re a junior?  Really?  So am I.  Where the fuck you been hiding?”

In fact, Angeline had been hiding in plain sight.  Life was so much easier when you could will yourself invisible.  Only now she was the center of unwanted attention and felt herself shrinking away… like the time she’d farted at a pep rally and the row of students behind her had stood up and moved.