Ferris Beach (42 page)

“I want you to go inside and take a shower,” she said, shaking her head stiffly, her jaw clenched.

Angela stepped out onto the porch. My mother pushed me towards the front door. The sprinkler still arced and sprayed, the birds still sang, ivy swayed off the gates of Whispering Pines, Merle still stood in that window, the heavy drapes swung back, his hands clumsy against his sides, making him look so helpless, so much younger than he’d looked just minutes before. I reached my hand out but she pushed me into the dark foyer, and I was
hit suddenly with the smell of my father’s cigarette smoke. He was not there to settle this mess.

“Why, Cleva,” I heard Angela say, her heels clicking through the foyer. “You look so upset, and, Kitty, what’s wrong? What has happened?” I ran upstairs and into the bathroom; I locked the door and ran water into the bathtub. The steam rose, then disappeared in the breeze from the window. The bathroom window looked over the driveway, the cemetery, shaded by the huge oaks there. I avoided looking in the mirror but got right into the tub and just lay back and closed my eyes, hoping to erase all that had happened. A shudder still came to me each time I pictured my mother’s face.
If only
I had heard her car in the driveway. How easily I could have gotten up to go home, pulled Merle close to say good-bye, and he would have peeked from the curtains to watch me walking through the sunshine. I would have turned and waved, a sign that we would meet again real soon. And I would have gone into our house and, with a few deep breaths, entered the kitchen to find my mother and Angela waiting. For years Misty’s wish had been:
If only my mother hadn’t left on that day, at that exact time.

I was sitting in my room, staring out at Whispering Pines, when I heard a light rap at the door. I had seen Misty pull into her driveway an hour earlier and still had not called her though I expected to hear from her soon since she was waiting for me to stop by. I watched the trees swaying as the wind picked up with the sudden clouds; I braced myself, prepared for my mother’s lecture, but instead I heard Angela. “Kitty?” she called. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Cleva told me what happened.” She sat on my bed, her foot near the leg of my chair as I propped my elbows on the windowsill. “Believe you me, I know
exactly
how you feel. But you’ll both get over it.” She nudged me with her toe, the tone in her voice like I was a child who had just spilled a glass of milk.

“She
toldyou?”
I asked, suddenly feeling even more exposed, the thought of my mother putting the scene into words.

“Look.” Angela reached and put a hand on my shoulder. “She’s
not the most understanding person, you know? And she certainly isn’t with the times.” She laughed a quick laugh, shook me, and then realizing she had failed to make me feel better, got serious again. “It wasn’t the smartest thing you could have done, you know?” She shook her head. “It was more like something / would do.” She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me up close, her cheek pressed against mine. “You’ll survive, Kitty.”

The trees in the distance were bending, the sky getting darker. For a week we had had those afternoon rains like clockwork. I imagined Merle running towards the trailer park, hurdling tombstones as he had done that rainy day so long ago when I had sat on the sleeping porch and watched him; my mother was over at Mrs. Poole’s tea and Mo Rhodes was showing off her purple shag carpet.

“I’ve got to be going, I guess,” Angela said, her hand barely touching my hair. “Keep in touch. You know if you need to talk to somebody, I’m there.” I nodded, listened as she stepped out into the hall and closed my door. I imagined my mother waiting at the bottom of the stairs, large hand clutching the railing. I couldn’t stand the thought of facing her.

I rested my face on the windowsill, where the mist was slowly blowing in. The phone was ringing but I ignored it; I knew my mother would tell Misty that I’d call her back later. But what if the Landells had returned and were looking for Merle? Maybe he had stayed and waited for them as planned; maybe he had sat on the velvet chaise as if nothing had ever happened. Maybe now he was in the trailer, lifting cluttered pasteboard boxes from his mother’s arms as his little sister hugged her knees and stared into the small TV set. Maybe he was on the phone, calling for me or calling to apologize to my mother, to make her understand.
Understand?
I could hear her asking.
How can I understand?
No wonder Angela left home; I envied her that freedom, the time she had run away and gotten married, the time she had said that the world could go to hell, she was doing as she pleased.

Now she was down in the driveway, her hair drenched and
stringy as she loaded some of the clothes boxes into the trunk of the Impala. “Greg is just about the same size as Fred,” she had said that very morning at breakfast. She waved her hand toward the porch and then stood there with the car door open and looked up at my window. It was then that I knew I couldn’t sit in that house another second; I opened the window and screamed out for her to please wait for me. “Please don’t leave yet.” I waited until she closed the door and headed back towards the porch, and then I grabbed one of my new suitcases and started wadding clothes and stuffing them inside. It was as easy as walking out.

It was quiet when I went downstairs. The two of them were standing in the dark foyer. The front door was open and there was a cool breeze, the fresh scent of rain as the pavement out front steamed. “There you are.” Mama’s eyes were red and puffy, more so even than they had been at the funeral. She stared at me and shook her head slowly; when she saw my suitcase, she turned away. “Where are you going?”

I ignored her and turned to Angela. “You’re always inviting me to come see you,” I said, and she, too, turned away, car keys clutched in her hand.

“Yes, but maybe this isn’t the best—” Before she could finish, my mother began talking, fast and forcefully.

“Why not?” she asked. “This is the perfect time. You two can have a wonderful time comparing notes.”

“Cleva,” Angela said, and sighed. “I don’t think it’s a good time.”

“So you don’t want her to go, is that it?” Mama asked. “All talk and no action as always?” She thrust her hands in the pockets of her linen jacket; she was still all dressed up from the visit to the lawyer. “So tell her.” She pointed to me. “Tell Kate that you don’t want her to come. Tell her what a fair-weather friend you are.”

“That’s not
fair”
Angela said.

“What is?” my mother asked. “What I saw today wasn’t fair.
Losing Fred is not fair. You running away from home was not fair.” She held her hands up to her face briefly and then turned back straight as ever. “Why not go for broke?”

“I didn’t run away from
home”
Angela spat the word as she narrowed her eyes. “That was
never
my home.”

“So maybe that’s how Kate feels, too,” she said, and looked down at her beige pumps. “Maybe this isn’t her home.”

“Mother.” I felt my voice crack and I focused on the lights in Misty’s living room, on Sally Jean moving in front of the window with the vacuum cleaner.

“What, Mary Katherine?” she asked. “What can you say that will change anything?”

“Nothing,” I said, once again feeling a hard wave of resentment; I was
not
going to feel guilty. Mr. Rhodes was coming in from work and surprised Sally Jean as he crept up behind her; they laughed as he hugged her close, as she held up the nozzle of the vacuum and shook it at him.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I guess I could say something to make it easier. I could say that I wish you weren’t my daughter, that I’m ashamed of you, that I wish you had never been born?” She paced the foyer, hands clasped, wringing. “Or better.” She turned quickly, hand to her chest. “I could say that I wish I had died in childbirth so that you could have taken your chances elsewhere.” She waved a hand towards Angela. “That would make things easier.”

“You can
say
anything,” I told her, and picked up my suitcase, looked at Angela. “Are you going to let me come or not?”

“I knew I failed with Angela,” Mama was saying. “But I had no idea that I had failed with you.” She was crying then, face twisting as she tried to turn so we couldn’t see. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the late afternoon sun came from behind a cloud like a bad joke, illuminating, highlighting the most horrible of moments before receding once again. “I loved your father, and when I look at you, both of you, I see our whole life together.”
Her voice shook as she leaned against the doorframe of his office, forehead pressed against the closed door. “What do you expect from me? What do either of you expect?” She turned and ran down the hall to her room. I stood with my hand gripping the handle on the suitcase as I prepared for the slamming of her door, but instead she closed it quietly, making barely a sound.

“Well, I guess IVe got myself a roommate,” Angela finally said, and breathed out, jingled her keys. She looked anything but pleased as she walked onto the porch and let the screen door slam shut. Oliver was wet and huddled up under the swing; I wanted to stop and scoop him up in my arms, but Angela was already standing with the trunk open. Slowly I walked out and put my suitcase in, the gates of Whispering Pines to my back; I had the odd sensation that I was being watched, but when I looked over at my mother’s window, the drapes were hanging perfectly still.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Angela asked, and turned the ignition; it took three tries before she got the car cranked. I nodded and stared over at the gates of Whispering Pines, where rain was still dripping from the trees.

“You said you understood,” I told her, and she nodded, lit a cigarette and then backed down the long drive. I was relieved that Misty was not outside to see me; I’d tell her the whole story later, when I had had time to think through it in my own way. When we got to the street that led to the trailer park, I asked Angela to turn and she did, driving slowly until I spotted Merle’s father’s truck, the back already loaded with boxes and lamps, an overstuffed armchair.

“So what are you going to do now?” she asked, and put the car in park, the loud engine idling. She turned on the radio and twisted the knob. I hadn’t thought that far, yet. Somehow I had expected him to be there waiting by the side of the road. My hand was on the doorhandle as she fiddled, faint stations coming and going. His father came outside with an armload of clothes on hangers, and I was about to tell her to keep driving, but then there he was; he backed out the door, no shirt, and then turned
with a big box clutched to his chest. He was down the one metal step and onto the concrete slab when he spotted Angela’s Impala and set the box down.

“Go on,” Angela said, finally stopping on a song by the Doobie Brothers. “Go talk to him.”

His father was standing there staring at us, his white T-shirt damp and clinging to his broad chest. The mother was in the doorway with Maybelline. I rolled down the window as he walked over and bent down, forehead pressed against the top of the car. He eyed Angela and then looked at me, mouthed a “Hi.”

“Go on,” Angela said. “What am I supposed to do, sit here and act like I’m not listening?” Merle opened the door, and I followed him several yards from the car; we just stood there in the middle of the road, yellow mud caking our shoes. He caught hold of my hand, barely touching my fingertips.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, stared over at his father, who still had not moved from his spot. “I really am so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything.” I shrugged. “I mean you
did
but ...” I felt my face flush and, instinctively, my hand went to my cheek. “It’s okay.” I avoided looking over at their trailer, ignored the gunning engine of the Impala. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to do all the things we had planned.”

“So we did something else.” He gave a weak smile and then looked down, his toe rubbing a line through the mud. “Guess your mother really hates me now.”

“Yeah, well, she hates a lot.” I tilted my head toward Angela’s car as she gunned the motor. “I’m going home with Angela for awhile.” I shrugged. “I just can’t stay there with my mother right now.”

“I know what you mean.” He glanced over at the trailer and then looked back at me, his eyes a deep emerald green. “Look, it’s not like we’ll never see each other. I mean, we don’t have to say good-bye, right?”

“Right.”

“You can drive over anytime; it’s only thirty miles.” He held my hands tighter now, stepped closer as Angela gunned the engine again. “And I can come visit anytime. The Landells have invited me.”

“Hey, we don’t have all day.” Merle’s father was standing there with his hands on his hips. “We gotta get this stuff covered in case it rains again.”

Merle didn’t even flinch, just leaned forward and kissed me quickly on the cheek. “I meant everything I said,” he whispered, and I nodded. “I’m just sorry it had to happen that way.”

“Hey, Merle, save it for after dark, okay? I mean it.” His father was stacking the drawers of a chest on the tailgate. “You can carry on some other time.” I avoided looking at his father as we walked back to the car. Angela put the car in drive, her foot on the brake, before I even closed the door.

“I’ll call you,” Merle said as we started moving. “I’ll see you soon.” He jogged beside us until Angela gave him a quick wave and turned onto the main road. I turned around in my seat and watched him there, his hand still lifted in a wave.

We rode silendy until we were out of the city limits and on the long barren stretch of road that led to the beach. Paul McCartney’s “Band on the Run” was coming and going in little bursts of static, and finally Angela gave up and turned it off. “Don’t be so glum,” she said, and patted the seat between us. “I mean, it’s not like you’re going to die without him. There will be another one to take his place in no time.” She fiddled with her right hand, pulling a cigarette from her pack and holding it between her lips as she fumbled for a match. “And Cleva will simmer down. Give her a little time.” She finally got the cigarette lit and took a deep drag.