Into the Garden (26 page)

Maybe it worked, I thought. Hours passed and my father hadn't called, nor did he dare to come to the door. Actually, I hadn't heard from any of the girls, either. Finally, close to ten P.M., Jade phoned to see how things were. I heard music and laughter behind her. She told me she was at an exclusive beach club with David.

"Have you spoken to Star?" she asked. "I tried to reach her earlier to tell her about Stuart, but she went somewhere with Larry before I could reach her, and I didn't want to leave any message with her grandmother. She's spending more and more time with him."
"So she doesn't know about Stuart?"
"Not unless Misty's spoken to her since I tried. I'm planning for us all to meet tomorrow night. Misty told you, right?"
"Yes."
"Another crisis meeting," she said, "but what's new about that, huh?"
"Maybe Stuart's right," I said sadly. "Maybe we made a big mistake and we'll all get into terrible trouble."
"Don't get yourself all depressed, Cat. We'll figure it out. We always do," she said. "I've got to go. David's waiting. Stuart hasn't said anything to him, apparently. I'll call as soon as I'm up and around tomorrow morning. However, the way it's going that might be tomorrow afternoon," she added with a laugh.
Minutes after I hung up, Misty phoned. She said she and Chris had just come out of seeing a movie and they were stopping to get some slices of pizza.
"Anything happening?" she asked breathlessly, sounding like she was hovering over the receiver so Chris couldn't hear our conversation.
"No. Jade called and said she hadn't spoken yet to Star. Have you?"
"No. It's all right. We'll call her in the morning. You all right?"
"Yes," I lied.
I didn't want to say or do anything that would take away from their fun. If I hadn't insisted on our telling Stuart everything, I would have probably been spending the night with him and having fun, too, I thought. At least there would have been one more night or maybe two. I'm my own worst enemy. Geraldine used to say that. She might have been right at least about one thing.
"I need a favor," Misty said.
"What?" What could she possibly want from me? I wondered.
"I was going to bring Chris to my house tonight afterward, but my mother shocked me by having a small house party. Apparently, she has a date, too. Since my father's marriage, she's been looking for a boyfriend. Just for spite, I think."
"What's the favor?"
"I want to bring Chris over in about an hour. Do you think that would be all right even though you have no one to be with?"
"I don't know," I said. "It's not that I care about not having a date, too. If my father is out there and really believes we brought Geraldine home, he surely would wonder about it. Geraldine wouldn't let anyone within a foot of our door after ten and hopefully, we've got him believing she's here. Wouldn't we risk all that?"
"He can't be parked there all day and night," she said. "I didn't think he was there the night he took the picture of Stuart kissing me," I pointed out.
"We could come in through the back door," she said, "like I did."
"But how would you explain that to Chris?"
"I'll just say a neighbor complained about our party or something and you don't want your mother to know. You promised her no more parties or guests. Like I said, he doesn't ask questions. We'll stay in the living room. You don't have to wait up or anything. Just leave the back door unlocked," she said.
The thought of doing that sent a chill down my back, but then I realized my father could easily force it open anyway if he wanted to.
"Okay," I relented.
"And Cat?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't tell Jade or Star. It doesn't involve them," she said.
We don't keep secrets from each other, I thought, but I knew why she didn't want them to know. They might very well be upset at her for taking such a chance.
"I won't lie if they ask," I warned.
"No, I'm not asking you to. Just don't volunteer the information. Okay? If none of this is okay, I'll understand," she said.
"No, it's all right."
Actually, the thought of having someone else in the house tonight was comforting, even if they were totally involved in each other and practically forgot I existed.
"Don't wait up," she repeated, and hung up.
After I unlocked the back door, I went into the living room to watch television, but I didn't really see anything. The tube blinked and brightened, flickered with people. All the voices merged into one unintelligible hum. When I gazed around, I suddenly felt terribly lonely. It made me think of all the elderly people who sat in houses day and night, looking at the world through a television window. If they turned and looked out their house windows, nothing seemed much different after a while. What was real and what wasn't was hard to distinguish.
I closed my eyes and tried to think about Stuart, tried to remember our wonderful day and night, but already his face and his voice were sinking into the mire of lost remembrances. We hadn't had time to build a strong enough place for our memories to be safely stored. Had I imagined his smile, his wonderful words, his touch, and kiss? What had been real and what hadn't? Maybe none of it was. Maybe I had wanted it so much, I dreamed it all.
Worried still that Misty and I might not have done well, or that my father hadn't seen any of it, I tried to stay awake until she and Chris arrived, but try as I would, the terrible drowsiness was like water rushing over me, drowning me until I dropped deeper and deeper into a nightmare. I was rushing through a hallway full of cobwebs, breaking one after another, fleeing from someone whose footsteps grew louder and louder along with my growing panic. The cobwebs got thicker and harder to break. Soon I was struggling to get through one. The threads stuck to my arms and my legs like gum. I was be- coming more and more tired, stumbling now, until finally, I fell forward into a large web and just hung there, unable to move my arms or my legs.
When I looked down, I saw I was naked. The shadow coming after me grew darker and closer and then, I woke up, screaming. The sound of my own voice terrified me. I waved my arms and fell back in the chair, stunned that it had all just been a dream. I was soaked with sweat, too. My heart was a parade drum, marching my blood around my body in rhythmic thumps. It took a few minutes to get my breath.
It was still very quiet. Misty and Chris hadn't arrived. Actually, I had been asleep only a few minutes. Misty probably didn't want me to be down here when she and Chris arrived anyway, I thought. She made a big point of my not waiting up. I rose and started upstairs. I was going to soak in a tub and then try to sleep. Tomorrow, they would all be here, and we would start again and solve all our problems.
I went up and ran the tub. While I was soaking, I heard music below. I listened for a while, imagining them either dancing closely or kissing on the sofa. Misty was so happy she had found someone she liked and whom she believed liked her. I was envious, but not jealous. Each of us deserved some good luck, I thought. I had half hoped that Stuart would have rethought it all and decided I was too important to him to just give up, even over something like this. Maybe tomorrow he would show up and tell me just that. Then I imagined Star telling me to stop being a dreamer. "You're hanging around with Misty too much," she would say.
What kind of people don't dream, don't wish, don't live in fantasy at least once in a while, however? How droll and dreary their lives must be. Even Geraldine must have had her dreams, must have fantasized that the man she had loved, my real father, would have come by and told her she really was the one he wanted. In her mind she would have lived a fairy-tale life. How she must have resented me, the very embodiment of the death of her fantasy, the period that ended her "Once Upon a Time ..." abruptly and forever.
It was strange how now, after her death, I was beginning to understand her more and more, and even sympathize with her. Once again, I thought that if she had been wise enough to give me the truth long ago, she and I might have become real sisters and both of us might have had some happiness together.
The music was still playing when I got into bed. I lay there listening to it. Occasionally, I thought I could hear their muffled voices and some laughter. Then, the music stopped and it grew very quiet. I turned over, closed my eyes and soon fell asleep.
When I rose in the morning and went down, I expected to find Chris and Misty asleep on the sofa, but they were already gone. Either they had left very late the night before or very early this morning, I thought. There were two glasses on the coffee table, both still with some orange juice. I smelled them and thought there was vodka in them as well. They had left a blanket crumbled on the sofa. I folded it and put it in the closet and then I took the glasses to the kitchen I didn't have much of an appetite so I just had a slice of toast and jam with a little juice.
It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. From what I could see, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and barely a breeze. I stepped out back and looked at Geraldine's grave. The rain from the night before had settled in and around it, making it more discernable. It looked like the ground had sunken some, but it also looked like some of the seeds of grass had begun to sprout. Very soon it would be covered and not so obvious, I thought.
As I stood there, I heard the doorbell ring. For a moment I didn't move. It was far too early for Jade, and Misty surely was still sleeping. We had never spoken to Star. Who would be there this early? It rang again and again. With my heart thumping, I went back through the house and first looked through the front window. I didn't recognize the car in the driveway, but when he stepped away from the door I spotted Larry in his uniform and breathed with relief. They rang again and I went to the door as fast as I could now.
"Sorry," I said, opening it, "I was out back."
"You were? Why?" Star asked, her eyes wide with suspicion. She was carrying a bag of groceries.
"Just getting air," I replied.
"Oh, good. We brought some breakfast," she began as she stepped in.
"Good morning, Cathy," Larry said.
"Good morning. You brought breakfast?"
"Yes. Larry and I spent the night up the coast, but neither of us was hungry when we woke up, so I thought we'd buy some fresh bagels and stuff and stop here on the way home. I figured you might be alone or is someone else here?" she asked with an impish grin.
I was reminded that she didn't know what had happened the day before.
"No, I'm alone." I said.
"Mind if I turn on the television?" Larry asked.
"No. Go ahead," I told him, and he went into the living room. Star and I went to the kitchen.
Before I could even begin to tell her what had happened, she put down her bag of groceries and hugged me.
"Oh, Cat," she cried, "I have so much to tell you. I really do think my luck has changed."
Without taking a breath, she continued.
"I never really believed in that love-at-firstsight stuff. Movies are movies, but in real life, people are lucky if they fall in love after being together for years and years. I mean, who in her right mind except some soap opera freak is going to believe that you look at someone who looks at you and in that moment your heart flutters and your blood races and you just can't wait to throw yourself into his arms forever and ever? Huh?"
Me, I wanted to say, but I was afraid to say or do anything that might slow down her train.
"But that's exactly what's happened here, Cat. You remember what I told you girls when I set eyes on Larry's picture, right? Already, something was happening to me. I didn't want to make all that big a deal of it. How many times has myma'ama been in love? Every man she started with after my daddy took off was the perfect new man, her knight in shining armor, each of which turned out to be a
disappointment in shining tin foil." She shook her head in disgust.
"So when it comes to believing in anyone, especially a man who drapes all these promises over you like some expensive furs, I said to myself, that will never happen to me. If I ever marry, it won't be for some glass of foam called love. It will be sensible and then, maybe someday, I'd look at my man and think, we have something, right?
"Wrong," she said before I could even nod. She finally took a big breath and then smiled and pressed her hands to her breast and gazed up at the ceiling. "Larry and I, we have something akin to magic, Cat. You know how you get comfortable when you settle yourself in a nice warm bath. I don't mean one of Jade's fancy smelly baths, but just an ordinary, warm tub?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well, every time I'm with him, all the time I'm with him, I feel that way. I feel ... comfortable and warm, and most important of all, Cat. I feel safe. Oh, I know what Jade's going to say," she added quickly, making a sour face. "She's going to tell you all that I fell in love with a uniform, that the uniform makes me feel safe, but believe me, Cat," she interjected with a soft, coy smile, "I've been with him when he's out of his uniform and it doesn't change a thing In fact, I feel it all more. Understand?"
"Yes," I said.
"Good. I knew you would. Of all of us, I knew you'd be the one to understand first and best," she told me. "Now here's the good part," she continued, pulling a chair out and sitting, "Larry and I haven't just been pawing over each other these past twentyfour hours. We've been thinking and talking and planning sensibly. I'm going to finish high school and he's finishing up his stint in the army and getting all his training. He's already got a good job lined up with his cousin, and what we're going to do is get married right after I graduate and he's out of the army. The most wonderful thing of all is he wants us to take Rodney in with us, too. It would lift some burden off Granny who, as you know, isn't exactly healthy and strong enough to raise another family. These are years she should be enjoying without daily worries. Larry sees that, believes that. He's as good as he is handsome, and I do believe he loves me more than any man will," she concluded.
She waited a moment for my reaction.
"Wow," I said. "It does sound great, Star. I'm happy for you."
"Right," she said. "You can consider me engaged, even though he hasn't gotten me a ring yet. He will real soon and then maybe, we'll have an engagement party, huh? We could even have it right here!"
I nodded, but I didn't look as enthusiastic as she would have liked.
"What's wrong?" she finally asked.
"Something's happened, hasn't it?"
"Yes," I said. I sat, too.
Star waited patiently, but she read my face and nodded. "Something to do with Stuart, huh?"
"I'm sorry," I said. "Everyone was right. He got cold feet right after you all left yesterday. He wanted me to call the police and confess what we did, and he said he couldn't help us and get involved. He did promise he wouldn't tell anyone though," I added.