The Girl from Charnelle (32 page)

Y
ou've thought it all through, have you?” he asked after she explained her plan.

He'd picked her up behind the warehouse a little before five, minutes before a rainstorm. They drove through the downpour, and once in the barn they made love urgently in a way that reminded her of the loose abandon of Galveston. As they held each other afterward, she realized that the last time they'd made love while it was raining had been in the tent at Lake Meredith. How different this was from that time, how different they both were, how strange to think it was only a few months ago. She remembered her own fear and pain then, how out of control she felt, how odd they seemed to each other. And now it was easy between them, as if it always had been, and she longed not only for the intensity but also for the quietness after they made love, the world slowly coming back into focus, the whistled breathing of John, his face pressed against her shoulder, his arms enclosing her. Listening to the rain pound against the barn, they'd dressed and then lain on the pallet
next to each other in the light of the kerosene lamps. Trying to disguise her nervousness, her eagerness, she'd told him about her plan.

“What do you think?” she asked, biting a hangnail.

“Impressive,” he said, but he wasn't smiling.

“Do you love me?” she asked and then immediately wished she hadn't. That wasn't the right question. Not at all. Not now. It exposed her neediness.

“You know I do.”

It would have been nice to hear the words, but at least he didn't deny it. “We could do it,” she said. “We could.”

“We'll see,” he said.

She couldn't quite read his reaction. The stakes were high, she knew that. Higher for him than for her. She had expected him to argue with her, to play devil's advocate. She had readied herself for a fight; she had prepared herself to persuade him. But he said nothing. He just turned away, walked to the window, and opened the curtain slightly to expose the rain-smeared glass. He reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. He drew one out and put it in his mouth, but he didn't light it. She followed him to the window, wrapped her arms around his chest, pressed her face against his back.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She sidled in front of him, pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth and laid it on the windowsill. Standing on her toes, she kissed his neck and then looked at him. His eyes seemed glassy, his lips not as red as they usually were, too dry and cracked. She felt suddenly sorry for him.

“Come here,” she said, taking his hand. “Come with me.”

She led him to the mattress and coaxed him to lie down again. He laced his hands behind his head. She stared at him for a long time, until he grew uncomfortable and closed his eyes. She leaned down and gently kissed his lips and then his neck. She ran her fingers along his collarbone and through the tuft of hair rising out of the top of his shirt.

“John.”

“We'll see,” he said.

He smiled, but it wasn't a genuine smile, just something to appease her. She pressed her body against his, looped her leg over his hips.

“John,” she said optimistically, “we can do it.”

She lay on top of him, kissed him until he began to respond. She wanted to show him what he could expect. She wanted him to see the possibilities.

T
he next week John failed once to show up at the arranged time, and the day when he did pick her up behind the warehouse, he seemed distracted, hurried, impatient. She tried to get him to tell her what he was thinking, but he just kept saying, “We'll see,” like she was a child who could be put off indefinitely. She intentionally stood him up the next Monday; she wanted him to know what it was like to be left there waiting. He had not called to find out why she wasn't there. She wondered if
he
had even shown up.

By that following Thursday, when he picked her up, she was itching for a fight. She did not say a word in the truck, felt in fact humiliated, livid about having to scrunch down on the floorboard yet again. When they arrived at the barn, he lit the lamp, and she stripped quickly and angrily and then lay on the pallet.

“What's the matter?” John asked.

“Nothing. Go ahead,” she said. She opened her legs and stared un-blinking at him, her lips pursed.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Go ahead if you want to. I'm not stopping you.”

“Are you mad at me, Laura?” he asked, surprised.

She just stared at him. He shook his head slowly and moved toward the pallet, as if he could repair the damage he'd already done.

“Laura, what is the
matter
?”

“You don't want to know,” she said, sitting up.

“I do.”

“No, you don't.”

“Tell me.”

“How is this going to end?” she demanded.

“What end? What are you talking about?”

“This. Us.”

He sighed as he lifted his eyebrows, pretended he didn't have any idea what she was talking about, that he was not a mind reader. She knew that look. She'd used it herself. She wasn't buying this act. He damn well knew what she was talking about.

“I just want to know,” she said flatly. “How is it going to end?”

“It's not ending. Nothing's ending.” He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and started to light it. This irritated her even more.

“Just answer me,” she said, more insistently. She stood up but made no attempt to cover herself. She wanted him to look at her. “Answer me!”

“Jesus! We only have an hour.”

“And that time can be better spent screwing me!” she shouted.

“
Laura!
” The lit cigarette fell from his mouth, and he had to stamp it out. “Damn it!”

“Well,” she barked, “that's all this is, isn't it?”

“No! No, not at all.” He put his hand out to her. She crossed her arms. Kept them there, didn't move. “My God,” he said, “I've never seen you like this.”

“It's been over two weeks since we talked about leaving. You said, ‘We'll see.'”

“I did not say that.”

“You damn well did too. You said, ‘We'll see.' What does that
mean
? ‘We'll see.' I want to
know
. I don't
see
anything.”

“I'm still thinking about it.”

“Bullshit!” she shouted.

“Quit talking like that.”

“You're not my father. Don't tell me what to do.”

“Please, then,” he said, reaching out to her again. She stepped away. He picked up her shirt, handed it to her. “Just calm down. Here, put your clothes on, and we'll talk.”

She slapped his hand away. “You don't want to go with me, do you?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You don't
have
to say. It's obvious.”

“That's not true,” he said.

“Then what
is
? What
is
true? You say you want to be with me. But you're never gonna leave here, are you? You're just stringing me along.”

“Stop it! That's enough! It's just not possible right now. There are other people to consider here, you know.”

“I know it as well as you do.” She grabbed her clothes, turned her back to him, and quickly began dressing.

“I don't think you do. It's very complicated. I have a wife. I have kids. I have a job. If I leave, all that's over. Over. I can never come back. Never. You don't understand how much—”

She whirled around, snapping, “Just take me home.”

“Laura—”

“Take me home!”

She didn't need his explanations, didn't need him treating her like some selfish, petulant girl. Not now. She grabbed her socks and shoes and headed for the barn door.

“Come back here.”

“I want to go home.”

“You're the one who said you wanted to talk.”

“Not anymore. Just take me home.”

“Okay, then!” he shouted. “Fine! If that's what you want, fine!”

 

He started the truck and backed out, but it made her sick just being on the floorboard again. She'd had enough of that. “I changed my mind. I wanna walk.”

“It's three miles to your house.”

“I don't care.”

“Just let me take you to the warehouse.”

“I don't want to go to the warehouse. I'm sick of that damn warehouse.”

“It's safer that way.”

“Yeah, the secret place where you drop off your little slut.”

“Goddamn it, shut up!”

“Let me out.”

“No.”

She opened the door. The bleached dirt of the road scared her momentarily.

“Laura, what in the hell are you—”

She was stepping out and then rolling, off the dirt road into the grass, but then she landed, surprisingly, on her feet, like a cat. She was grateful for this bit of grace. He stopped the truck, hurtled out, and stood at the tail-gate, calling to her, “
Jesus Christ!
Are you okay?”

She just stared at him.

“Get in!”

“Forget it,” she said.

“Get
in
!”

She didn't answer him, just walked on ahead of him, past the truck.

He opened his door. She heard it but didn't look back. He eased the truck up beside her. “Please, Laura,” he called through the window. “Just get in the truck. Please.” She kept on walking. He stopped, and she could hear him getting out again. He stalked behind her. “Laura, goddamn it, get your ass in the truck!”

She said nothing, kept going.

“Is that the way you want it? Is it? Then fine. Walk, then, you little—”

She wheeled around, facing him. He stopped himself. She dared him. She wanted him to say whatever it was he was going to say. When he didn't, she turned around and began walking again. A few seconds later, a rock flew to the side of her, wide, not close, not even really aimed at her, she knew, just meant to provoke her. It hit the road, skipped three times in the dust, as if across a pond. She didn't even flinch. Didn't turn around.

The engine gunned, and then the gravel chomped under the tires. He roared past her, dust billowing in her face.

“Go on!” she yelled. “Just get the hell out of here!”

She squinted against the dust, tried not to inhale the opaque cloud.

T
hat night she went to bed thrilled with the excitement of her rage.

She did not sleep, nor did she want to sleep. About eleven she got up, changed into her clothes, and slipped out the back door. It was warm still, only a slight breeze blowing, with no clouds. The moon three-quarters full, bright gold, and stars everywhere. Fay woke when Laura opened the door and approached her, growling at first, but when she saw who it was, she put her head against Laura's legs. Laura petted the dog for a long time, reliving what had happened with John, alternately proud and ashamed of her behavior. Fay fell asleep in the dirt by the porch, and Laura wandered around the yard, looked at the foundation her father had been laying for his new workshop. And then she walked down the alley, but the dogs started barking at her, so she went back for her bike.

She pedaled down the alley and then out onto the streets, north to the Waskalanti Creek, racing by the trestle where Danny Lincoln had broken his neck and where she and John had made love at the end of the summer,
off the road, under the canopy of trees. She pedaled over to the bus station, which was just off the town square at the intersection of the highways. She circled it three times, stopped and looked off to the highway leading northwest, toward Denver, and then pedaled to the one leading southeast toward Amarillo and stood there trying to imagine the direction her mother had gone, imagining what she must have been looking ahead to.

Staring down the dark highways, she wondered for the first time if her mother's disappearance and her own affair with John were linked, if the one had caused the other. Would she have been at the Armory on New Year's Eve had her mother still been here? Would she have been so able—or willing—to deceive her family had her mother been here? Her mother was always so quiet, so secretive herself, really, but she also seemed to have a direct pipeline to other people's secrets. She even said many times that there were
no
secrets and had seemed to know what would happen with Gloria before everybody else did. Laura's father, on the other hand, was less suspecting, though you'd think he'd be more wary, given what had happened with Gloria and then his wife. Laura was sure she could not have hidden what she was up to had her mother been here. There would have been no Lake Meredith. No idyll in Galveston. And she wondered if John would have been so bold himself. It was one thing to dupe his gullible friend Zeeke, but Laura's mother was, in her hard and silent mystery, more formidable than her father. Her mother's absence had opened up this space for the Letigs to enter her life. And look where that had brought her. To this foolishness! She suddenly felt a hot surge of rage at her mother, something she could never remember feeling before; she couldn't understand the anger her father and Manny felt when her mother left. She could not bring herself to completely blame her mother. She had only felt empty and confused and inarticulately sad, and later, resigned. And then somehow she'd turned it around in her mind so that she was sometimes happy that her mother had left, had transformed her into a hero, courageously doing the unthinkable, reinventing herself, as if her disappearance were something to be honored and admired—like some damn American myth that Mr. Sparling nattered on about in his lectures.
How stupid!
It was all so stupid. The woman had abandoned her family. No explanation, no nothing. What was there to admire in that?
What?
she wondered. Maybe her mother was dead now. Maybe she ran off and killed herself, just like Uncle Unser. Maybe that's what she was plotting in Aunt Velma's barn on Easter. Well, what did it matter now? She was as good as dead to them anyway.

Laura was sick of thinking about it. She was sick of thinking altogether. She got back on her bike and rode hard around the square in the cool evening breeze, until she broke a good sweat, and then practically coasted over to the Letigs' house, where she stood by a tree across the street and stared into their dark windows. It was late, past midnight now. She pedaled to the alley, the dogs barking shrilly at her. But she kept on, making one pass and then another, fast as she could, the rocks on the unpaved alley road crunching under her tires. The Letigs' lights were off in the back windows, too.

She set her bike down in the alley against a trash can. She breathed hard, but from the riding, not from fear. She opened the back gate of their yard. Across the alley, a dog barked once, twice. She turned to it and put her finger up to her mouth, stared at it fiercely.

“Hush,” she whispered. The dog shut up.

She walked into the yard, not secretly, but quiet and calm. She didn't fear being caught, and she felt liberated by her lack of fear. She went to the bedroom window and could see those sheer blue curtains she'd admired from inside when she was nosing around in their bedroom. The window was open. The curtains swayed gently in the light breeze. She pressed her face up close, tried to peer in, but she could see nothing at first. She held her breath and listened, could hear the hum of John's breathing as he slept. A light wheezing noise, too—Mrs. Letig. Anne. Anne Letig. Everything else was quiet. She stayed there for several minutes, barely breathing now, just listening to them. They were so still in this house, everybody sleeping and dreaming whatever it was they were dreaming.

She pressed her face against the screen, but all she could see were two lumps in the bed. Not close together. A space between them. Her eyes adjusted, and she could make out Anne Letig, with her thick stomach and her nice fashionable dresses and her cash and her store-bought vegetables and her pinochle games and her hatboxes and perfume and silver fish barrettes and her well-behaved boys and her whining about her apron strings stretching to Dallas and her beef and chicken enchiladas and all those confusing references to her mother, telling Laura that her mother loved…no,
loves
you children. What the hell did she know? Who elected her substitute parent? Always sticking her stupid foot in her mouth, acting like she cared, patting poor sick Laura in her bed.
Oh, we love you so much, Laura. You are so special to us!
When what she really cared about was having a dependable
baby-sitter so she could drive off to Aspen or Dallas or to the Brewers' for pinochle or wherever else she wanted to go. If she didn't have the money, didn't have the
frills,
would Laura even be in her life? Would John even be in her life? Wasn't that the real thing holding him back now? He couldn't stand to part with the
frills.
What would Mrs. Letig have done back in May had she known that the baby-sitter was so sick because John had taken her out in the woods and screwed her? Would Mrs. Letig have been so sweet and comforting then?

Laura had the impulse to scream at them through their window. Scare the hell out of them both, cackle like a raving maniac. Another crazy Tate woman.

The dog across the alley barked again.
Enough,
she thought.
Enough
. She walked away, out the gate, and to her bike. She started off but circled back down the alley, slowing for one final look.
Enough!
And then off she sped, down the middle of the dark, empty streets, coasting down another alley of barking dogs to her own yard, to Fay, panting by the fence, waiting for her return, glad to see her, licking her hand and then, when Laura bent down, licking her face with that nasty old breath of hers.

The poor dog was starved for love. Laura let her into the house, even though she didn't smell very good, and into her room, where her brothers all slept soundly. It was odd how when you didn't care if you were caught, you wouldn't be, but if you did care, you were always on the verge of detection. Or so you thought. She slipped back into her pajamas and into bed, Fay licking her dangling fingers and then wheezing into sleep. Laura made the hummingbird wings on the sculpture flap one more time but was mad at herself for doing it. It seemed sentimental, stupid even. Then finally she slept.

 

She didn't go to the warehouse at all that week. But her rage had given way to something more vulnerable and painful. She wanted to see him but felt queasy about it. What would she say? What was there left between them? Throughout the day she would think about John—about his catlike swagger, the way he seemed sometimes to glide when he walked, about his long, angular face and how angry he had been the last time they'd been together, how they'd screamed at each other and he'd thrown that rock toward her and then roared past her, wheeling dust into her face. Everything between
them came back to her in vivid detail. The memories that she had struggled to coax to the surface before, when she had wanted them, now came unbidden. She would be working through a complicated trigonometry problem, and she'd inexplicably smell sea salt and was suddenly back at the beach, in the cabin, caught in the crook of his arm, listening to the sound of the waves. Or in English class Mr. Sparling called on her to read aloud from “Young Goodman Brown”—a dumb tale, she thought, about a boy, a girl, and what appeared to be the devil—and in the middle of the paragraph, the words before her were gone. All she could see was a page of dust, John's truck disappearing in the distance.

“Miss Tate,” Mr. Sparling had said, “please continue.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, but she didn't know where she was. Debbie had to reach over and put her finger on the line where she had stopped.

She wanted to talk to him, but it was impossible. She called once. His wife answered the phone, so Laura hung up the receiver. She didn't like this neediness in herself. She had to fight the urge to go to the warehouse in the afternoon to watch from a distance to see if he would show up. She waited in the school library after the last bell rang or walked to the Charnelle Library or downtown to the courthouse lawn and into 4-D's, where she listened to Dean chatter, refilling her cherry soda for free, and she watched the clock until five-fifteen passed. At five-thirty, she would head home, taking back alleys rather than the sidewalks so that he wouldn't drive by and see her, though she also knew that even that was a form of self-flattery. He must be glad to be rid of her, she thought. Glad it was finally over. She had pushed too hard.

But still, she missed him, and at night she would lie awake, unable to sleep, staring at the sculpture, moving her eyelashes so the bird's wings would flap, and in the evenings she would take her diary into the bathroom and read back through the entries, never with his name, never with any details, coded so that only she would know what it meant. One afternoon she found, tucked between the pages, the drawing of Yankee Doodle Gal, and she began to cry. She ran the water in the sink and then the tub to drown out the sound of her sobbing. She took off her clothes. The water was up as hot as she could stand it, and then even hotter, so that the steam choked her, and she stood in front of the foggy mirror and looked at her figure and thought of him, of the ways his hands and body had moved over hers. The sight of her body made her feel even more wretched. She was disgusting. She could
never tell anyone about John. She had wanted to believe that it was okay, that there was beauty in what they had done, and that the heat of flesh on flesh was a worthy thing, and sometimes pure, so pure, the closest she had ever come to that invisible life she sensed was on the other side of this life. But now she knew that she had just been deceiving herself.

She let the hot water run. She wanted it to burn. She wanted it to scald her flesh. It took a while before she could even slip into the water, inching her toe, her foot and ankle and calf, the other foot and ankle and calf, and she stood, watching her legs pinkening from the heat, the steam smoking above the water. She bent down and then went deeper, until her knees touched the bottom of the tub, her thighs almost completely submerged. It burned. She covered her mouth, bit her palm. She closed her eyes and readied herself to drop her hips quickly into the painful water. She was afraid she might scream.

But she could not make herself do it. She was a coward. She reached out to the faucet and turned on the cold water, let it run in the tub until the bath was tolerable. She turned it off and sank easily down on her back. She had failed to do what she intended. She closed her eyes, and her thoughts drifted to John and her together. It was vivid and close, and that angered her. She had no control over herself—over her body, over her memory, over anything.

She slipped down in the water to wet her hair, and then down even more until her face was under the surface. She opened her eyes and stared through the refraction at the cracked plaster ceiling, the rusted corners of the pipes. She held her breath for as long as she could, letting the bubbles stream out of her mouth in intervals, and then she held it even longer until her chest started to burn and her eyes bulged. She could see her hair floating like seaweed above and to the sides of her face. Just one swallow. It was easy. The easiest way to go, her mother had said. You wouldn't even know it. One large gulp in the lungs and that's it. She heard her heart thudding loudly in her chest and temples. She held on for another few seconds, and then she exploded through the surface of the water, spitting and coughing.

Someone was beating on the door. “Are you all right in there?” her father barked.

She spit and coughed and couldn't answer.

“Laura, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she stammered.

“Your water must be awful hot. The whole house is steamed over.” He sounded gruff. “Open the window.”

“Yes, sir,” she called.

“And get out soon. You need to make supper.”

“Yes, sir.”

She reached for a towel to cover her mouth. She kept coughing and coughing until tears streaked down her face. Finally she got control. She let the water out and lifted herself, dripping, from the tub and dried off. Her diary pages were bloated. Droplets of water were on the drawing he'd made. The water hadn't ruined the picture, though, hadn't streaked or blotched the image. Her face and body still recognizably there—cartoonish, mouth open, a flag—the water just beading on the surface without penetrating.