The Girl from Charnelle (23 page)

It had rained several times over the past two weeks, so the cool water was almost to her waist in some places. They had to keep the younger kids close to the edges, where they made mud pies and waded in only as high as their bellies.

Mrs. Letig followed her to the water, still in her dress, so Laura could see more of her body than she'd ever seen before. Her thighs were pale and varicose-veined above her knees, a little like Aunt Velma's, and Laura felt a secret sense of triumph. She took joy in splashing and parading in the creek in her new blue two-piece, knowing that her legs were thin and hard and tan and that her figure, though not perfect, not as voluptuous as those of the
starlets she'd seen in the magazines and on the big screen, was nice-enough-looking, better-looking than Mrs. Letig's. John had told her many times that he thought she was gorgeous, whispered compliments while they made love. She secretly watched to see if John was looking at her and his wife. She hoped he was. She knew she was parading around for his sake. She wanted him to compare. It was not nice, but she nevertheless delighted in her cruelty.

Manny and Joannie joined them in the water. Joannie had not brought her bathing suit, only shorts and a T-shirt, but Manny had stripped off his clothes—he wore his swim trunks underneath—and carried her into the creek, despite her thrashing protests.

Joannie would be a senior, along with Manny, and though the two had been dating since Christmas, she and Laura seldom talked. Laura liked her well enough. They would see each other in the halls every once in a while, nod and smile, and Laura had once hung out at 4-D's with Marlene, Debbie, Joannie, and Marlene's older sister, but Laura didn't talk to her much then either. Joannie's parents lived on the west side of town, and her uncle was Glenn Thomason—the same Glenn Thomason who'd caught Manny shoplifting years ago and who owned the filling station where Manny now worked. The girl was shy and sweet-natured, and she didn't talk to
anyone
very much, and when she did speak, it was in a low, whispery voice, like she was embarrassed to be heard. She was pretty, though Laura thought her tight, dark curls frumpy. Laura had decided that Manny could have done worse for a girlfriend. It somehow redeemed him that he had chosen such a sweet, shy girl—or that
she
had chosen
him
.

“Manny Tate, don't you dare!” It was the loudest sound Laura had ever heard from her.

But once he dropped her in the water, Joannie seemed happy enough, and they splashed each other. Manny was strong, muscular, with some baby fat still and hair scattered in uneven patches over his chest and belly and a wispy black mustache that Laura's father sarcastically called “belligerent.” Laura thought of how he always eyed himself when he passed a mirror, spending up to half an hour in the bathroom, combing his duck's ass, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, sticking out his chest. Yes, Laura was vain about her body, but it was nothing, she thought, compared to her brother's vanity.

Gloria and Jerome waded into the water, too, and then Manny yelled,
“Chicken fight!” and he dove between Joannie's legs and lifted her up on his shoulders. She shrieked in delight. Jerome did the same with Gloria, who was up for any sort of competition. They attacked each other, splashing and wrestling, while everyone looked on, cheering.

Gloria and Jerome had an unfair advantage because Joannie wore a T-shirt and it was easy to grab it and pull her down, which Gloria did, yelling to her husband, “Run, run, run!” as everybody shouted, Joannie toppling backward into the water, taking Manny with her. Spontaneous applause broke out.

“The champions!” Gloria shouted, raising her clenched fists high in the air.

“Yeah, baby!” Jerome slapped her thighs, which were clamped against his cheeks.

“Who's next?” Gloria challenged. “Who dares?”

“How about you, little sister?” Jerome called. “Get yourself a partner.”

“No,” Laura called, though she loved to chicken-fight.

There was a short pause, and then John stepped to the edge of the water, pulling his shirt over his head.

“We'll take you on,” he said.

“All right!” Jerome shouted. He bent down in the water, gulped some creek water, and spewed it as if he were a fountain.

Gloria yodeled: her Swiss Miss.

John still wore his jeans. He took his wallet, keys, comb, and handkerchief out of his pocket and set them on the blanket near Carroll, slipped off his boots and socks, and waded into the water toward Laura. The word “dangerous” popped into her head, but she shook it off.

“You ready?” he said.

“Yeah.”

He held his breath, disappeared underwater, slipped his head between her thighs, and lifted her up. She pinned her feet behind his back, and he hooked his bare arms tightly over her thighs, just above her knees. Laura stole a secret glance at Mrs. Letig, who was smiling benignly.

“Ready?” Gloria asked.

“Ready!” John said.

“How about you, Laura?”

“Yeah.”

Manny counted quickly: “One, two, three!”

They circled each other in the water. John made a dash, and Laura reached out and grabbed the back of Gloria's bathing suit and pulled as John churned through the water, but just as Gloria was about to fall, Laura lost hold of her, and Gloria righted herself.

“Cheater!” Gloria shouted.

“Get her, Laura!” her father called out. “Make her pay for marrying a Republican!”

They laughed, even Jerome. “So the election is on the line,” Jerome called. “What are you, John?”

“My mother once kissed Lyndon Johnson,” he said.

“Did you hear that, Dad?” Gloria shouted. “Letig's mother and Lyndon Johnson were lovers.”

“Is that true?” her father called.

“Did she say anything about his ears?” Gloria asked.

“You better watch what you say about my momma, girl,” John drawled.

Jerome and John circled each other again, Gloria and Laura both crouched low, their arms outstretched, their fingers wiggling, ready to grab. Jerome started one way, and John shifted his weight, but then Jerome turned quickly back the other way and was behind and then suddenly in front of John and Laura. She felt off balance. Gloria grabbed her arm, and Jerome started running. Gloria didn't have that strong a grasp, nothing that should have unseated Laura, but she could feel John relaxing his hold on her legs, and she lost her balance. Then she was sliding, sliding. Gloria pulled on Laura's hand, and she toppled off the side of John's shoulders, face-first into the water, John falling with her.

Before she surfaced, Laura felt his hand slipping between her thighs, his fingers resting for a couple of seconds on her bikini bottom. Panicked, Laura knocked his hand away. As they both rose sputtering from the water, to the shouts of Jerome and Gloria doing a victory lap around them and the smiles of everybody else looking on, including Mrs. Letig, Laura knew that John had done it on purpose, had let her fall so that he could steal this moment under the water. She looked at him in surprise, but he was shaking his head, wiping water from his face, a sly grin beneath his dripping mustache.

“Wanna rematch?” John called.

“You bet!” Gloria said.

Laura was already moving toward dry land, however, against their
protests. “I've had enough,” she said. She sat on the grass underneath the big oak tree. Mrs. Letig brought her a towel. “Thanks,” she said.

“You almost beat them.”

John approached, his hair and mustache and jeans still dripping, the water turning the blond hairs on his chest dark brown. His wife threw him a towel.

“She did good,” Mrs. Letig said. “You're the one that blew it, buster.”

“Just lost hold,” he said, his eyebrows arched in a what-can-you-say expression. “We'll get 'em next time.”

Laura stared at him for a second and then dropped her head between her knees so that her hair dangled over her eyes. She draped the towel over her head. She didn't think she could bear to look at either of them. The blood pumped thickly through her neck and temples. She could hear her breath as it whistled in and out of her nose.

 

Her father and Gene, Gloria and Jerome, Manny and Joannie, and John and Mrs. Letig were going for a late-afternoon hike while the Cransburgh brothers prepared the fireworks. Laura was supposed to stay behind, which made her angry, even at Gloria, the way they always assumed she would just watch after the kids, like it was her duty. But Mrs. Letig decided at the last minute that she didn't want to go.

“Come on, Anne,” Laura's father said. “It'll be fun.”

“I just don't feel like hiking right now.”

“Well, then, you just stay here with the kids and Laura can come,” John said, annoyed.

“Well, that'll be fine,” she said. “I'd rather stay here with the baby anyway. If that's okay with you, Gloria.”

“You bet,” Gloria said. Mrs. Letig took Carroll, who was napping in Gloria's arms. “The diaper bag's under the table. He probably won't wake for another hour, but just in case, there's a bottle in the bag. Are you sure you don't mind?”

“Are you kidding? It's my pleasure. It's been too long since I've held a baby. You go on. You, too, Laura. I'll keep an eye on the little ones.”

By the time Laura turned around, John and her father had already started out, ahead of everyone else. They all walked along the trails, down by the creek and the road. And then, as they turned up the trail toward the
big cave, Manny and Joannie slipped off under some trees, and John hung back as the others, chattering, disappeared around a bend. Laura motioned for John to follow her, because she wanted to show him a secret cave. The two of them climbed over the back of the ridge, crouched down for about ten feet, crawled for ten feet more, and then wound up in a large cavern with a small, lighted hole at the other end, where you could see Sad Monkey rock. John crawled in behind her, and then when he caught up to her, he pulled his shirt up so she could see his back—a long red scrape, but no blood. She kissed it. They talked quietly.

“You dropped me on purpose, didn't you?” she asked.

“Nah.”

“You did.”

“It was exciting, wasn't it?”

“Sort of,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘sort of '? It damn sure was. Besides, I was going crazy with you on my shoulders. Did you want me to walk out of the water with my pants bulging?”

“Nope.” She giggled.

“Okay, then.” He dropped his shirt and winced.

“Does it hurt?”

“I know what will make it feel better.”

“Be quiet,” she said, slapping him lightly on the arm. “We can't do anything here.”

“Sure we can. It's a cave, for Christ's sake. No one can even get in here.”

“Manny and Gloria know where this is.”

“Just for a minute. It'll be okay.”

He leaned against her. His jeans were still wet. They felt cold against her legs. He kissed her, and she let him, and then he tried to slip his tongue into her mouth, but she wouldn't let him, teasing him. He began tickling her.

“Quit it!” she whispered. “We're being too loud.”

She wriggled free of him and started crawling back toward the opening where they had come in. He grabbed her foot.

“Let go,” she whispered again. She felt his teeth on the back of her ankle. “Stop! I mean it. We gotta go.”

“Okay, I'll follow you,” he said and reached up and slid his hand inside the bottom of her shorts.

She slapped his hand away. “No, you wait here for a minute. Then you can come.”

“I'm about to come already.”

“Hush!” she said, laughing.

She crawled through the entry, crouching down lower at one point, aware of the top of the cave that might scratch, and then she got to her feet. Hunched over, she walked out, following the light. She peered back down the mouth of the cave. She heard John, but she couldn't see him yet.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I'm going on,” she said.

“Wait for me.”

“No,” she said. “You wait here for a few minutes.”

“You're a tease.”

She turned, brushed the dirt off her hands, and then climbed the rock to the top of the ridge, looking only at the handholds in front of her. At the top, right there on the other side, she was shocked to find Gloria.

“Hey!” Laura practically shouted.

“There you are,” Gloria said. “I've been looking all over for you. I thought maybe you snuck off to our cave. Is that where you were?”

“Yeah.”

“Let's go back.”

“It's blocked up,” she said. “You can't go all the way in. Let's go to the big one.”

Laura hurried past her. She started a miniature rockslide and slid about twenty feet down the hill. She wasn't hurt. She laughed loudly and nervously.

“Are you okay?” Gloria called down to her.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she said and slapped the dirt from her hands. “Come on!”

Gloria climbed more carefully down an alternate path, and when she was almost to the bottom, Laura started off again. She wanted to get her sister away from there as fast as she could. John stood at the top of the ridge. He raised his hand. He obviously didn't see Gloria yet.

“Hey!” he called. “Wait for me.”

She didn't answer. She just turned and started down the hill, half running. It was dangerous. If she fell, she might tumble a hundred feet.

“Hey, Laura!” Gloria called. “Be careful. Not so fast. We're down here, John.”

“I'm going on,” Laura called. She wasn't sure if Gloria could hear her or not. Jumping recklessly down the rock face, she was gone. She didn't look back. At the trailhead, she sprinted the rest of the way, her long hair flying behind her.