Chapter Eleven
Kellie cast a furtive glance in all directions, jumped into the van and slammed the door. As careful as she was, her mother had nonetheless seen her with Hal. Maybe when Cynthia asked where she was going, she should have said she was going to dinner with a friend, but to her mind, she didn’t owe her adulterous parent an explanation of her behavior.
“If you so fed up with your folks, we could get a place,” Hal said as he drove along South Street on the way to Route 70. “Seems like they always on your case. And I know what I’m talking about, cause your old man’s been trying to save me ever since my dad started going to his church.”
She shifted in her seat unwilling to contemplate living with Hal. Running off to meet him was one thing, because she could always go back to her own domain, her own class and environment. But to live with him . . . The nerve endings in the recesses of her vagina twitched and quivered and liquid accumulated in her mouth. Desperate for relief, she crossed her knees and rubbed her thighs together hoping to dampen her rising passion.
“Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on over there,” he said. “Just hold on. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She hated that he was so sure of himself, letting her know he could have her whenever he wanted to, ordering her around as if he owned the teeth she chewed with. Annoyed, she struck out at him in an attempt to remind him of the differences in their social status.
“A gentleman doesn’t speak of such things, Hal. Try to be more gracious and have better manners.”
“Something tells me you wanna feel the back of my hand against your mouth. Don’t get highfalutin’ with me, babe. Water seeks its level, so you ain’t a bit better’n me. At least, I never tried to steal anything, which is more than you can say. What were you looking for in you old man’s house, some money your grandmother left there, I’ll bet.”
She told him about the brooch, and he said, “Well, didn’t she leave you anything?”
She showed him the ring. “Jeez. Is that stuff real? Babe, we can hock that and get us an apartment.”
She recoiled as if he’d shot at her. “You’re joking. My daddy would come down on me like a wrecking ball on a building.”
“I’m just trying to get you out of that bad scene you got there at the parsonage. Maybe I’ll get my job back, but right now I’m flat out broke.”
“Have you been looking for a job?” She didn’t want to anger him, but by his own account, he’d been sleeping late and spending time at his favorite beer joints, so she said as gently as she could, “Benton’s Construction Company just got permission from my department to build a terminal where the old bus station used to be. You could get a job there, couldn’t you? And especially since right now, you’re probably the only construction worker around here who knows they’re going to be hiring.”
He stopped at a motel midway between Frederick and Baltimore. “Nobody’s gonna recognize you here.”
She noticed that he didn’t mention the job opportunity. As she walked with him around to the cabin he’d chosen, her head nearly burst as the memory of her father’s words pounded her brain. But like lemmings headed for the sea, she seemed bound to self-destruct. Telling herself that nothing good would come of it hadn’t made an iota of difference to her. She didn’t love him; how could she when he wasn’t loveable? Most of the time, she didn’t like him, but when he was storming inside of her, that was all that mattered. And when he wasn’t doing that, she could hardly think of anything else.
She hesitated when he opened the door, but she knew she’d go into that room; she lived for the times when he was on top of her. Maybe it was a kind of foreboding, but she felt as a prisoner must feel just before he steps into the jail and the door slams behind him.
He stopped, gripped her waist with one hand and stroked her left breast with the other one. “Come on, babe. You wasting good time. As it is, I can hardly wait to get you on the other side of this door.”
She pasted a smile on her face and stepped through the door, aware that for the first time in her life, she would stay out all night with a man. If only he were someone else!
“I don’t know where she went,” Cynthia screamed into the phone. “I asked her, but all she said was ‘Out.’”
Marshall sat down and told himself not to let it stress him, that Kellie had been moving farther from her family ever since that morning when he caught his wife in the backseat of his Cadillac with her lover. Maybe it started earlier. He’d been shocked to learn that Kellie and Mama Carrie knew Cynthia was having an affair.
Again, she screamed, “Do something, Marshall,” and he wanted to weep. Do what? He’d never felt so helpless in all of his life.
“I expect she’s with Hal Fayson, and I am not going to exacerbate the situation by informing the police authorities that she’s missing. I’ll try to reach Hal’s father and ask him if Hal came home last night. Did you call Lacette?”
“No, because Kellie’s too upset about that brooch to say anything to Lacette. Lord, I sure hope she’s all right.”
He hung up and telephoned Hal’s father. “My daughter Kellie’s been seeing Hal, and she didn’t come home last night. Could she have been with him?” he asked the man after greeting him.
“Hal didn’t come home, if that’s what you’re asking, but I don’t know where he is or who he’s with. I sure hope your daughter’s not involved with Hal, because he seems headed for rock bottom. He ain’t got no job and ain’t bothering about looking for one. It ain’t right for a thirty-seven-year-old man to be living off his poor old father.”
Marshall heard the long sigh of resignation and pitied the man. “Did he give you anything when he was working?”
“When he felt like it.”
How many times had he heard that tune from parents of errant children. “Well, Brother Fayson, you’re not helping him by supporting him. The thing for you to do is cut him loose.” He looked through the window at the young trees bent as if from the waist—like a washerwoman hovering over a tub—as the March wind belched its last breath, and he shook his head. What would he do if he got the same advice about Kellie?
“I don’t know, Reverend. You know he was a problem back when I started going to Mount Airy-Hill. Long before that, he stayed in trouble. But he always would work, and he’s honest. I can say that for him. I sure hope for your sake that your daughter leaves him alone. If you find out where he is, please let me know.”
“I expect I’d find them if I checked every motel within fifty miles of Fredrick,” he said to himself after hanging up, “but I’m not doing that.”
He phoned Cynthia. “Since Hal didn’t stay home last night, I assume they’re together. Nothing for you and me to do but pray that she comes to her senses. You can’t police the behavior of a thirty-three-year-old woman, and you shouldn’t try. When are you moving?”
“Next week. It’s a two-bedroom apartment, and I thought she’d move in with me.”
“The two of you will kill each other. But if she has no place else to stay . . .” Realizing that it was probably a moot point, he let it hang. Where Kellie stayed would probably have more to do with Hal Fayson than with any member of her family. Shudders plowed through his body at the thought of what that implied.
“Let me know when you hear from her,” he said, “and try not to worry.”
He hung up and tried to work on his sermon for the coming Sunday, but couldn’t drag his mind from Kellie and the problem she had created for herself. And all because of the greed and self-ishiness that had festered in her from early childhood and finally erupted into ugliness and divisiveness. Mama Carrie would shed tears if she knew that her gift had led to Kellie’s downfall.
The sooner I move into that house, the better. Cynthia and Kellie need to get out of that parsonage and live separate lives. Maybe if Kellie is on her own, she’ll be more responsible. He had to content himself with that thought; it was the only straw he could hold on to.
Douglas put the chicken and dumplings that his mother gave him on his last visit home on the stove to warm, sat down at the table in his tiny kitchen and phoned his son. He wanted Nick to like Lacette, and he wanted it badly. Both he and the boy were fortunate in having the support of his parents. His wife Emily’s long and difficult illness drained him and his son, and the boy needed the love and support of his grandparents. But he wanted his son with him. Their weekly visits and nightly telephone talks didn’t satisfy him, but until he made a home for the boy, he couldn’t offer him more. For as long as he worked two and three jobs a day with uncertain schedules, he couldn’t supervise a growing and inquisitive boy.
“Dress to go fishing Sunday,” he told Nick nearing the end of their conversation. “I’m bringing Lacette with me, and we should be there around eight.”
He listened for the expected enthusiasm because Nick loved to fish, but he only heard silence, and it distressed him. Finally, he said, “Don’t tell me you don’t want to go fishing.”
“Why does she have to come?”
He jerked forward. “What’s this? I thought you liked her.”
“Uh . . . I was being nice like Grandpa told me. Don’t bring her. Let’s just you and me fish like we always do.”
Douglas slumped in his chair. It was a complication that he hadn’t considered. “Why don’t you like her?”
“I just don’t. I told her I already have a mother. Nana’s my mother.”
He got up, stirred the chicken and dumplings and lowered the flame, giving himself time to consider his reply. “How did that topic come up?”
“It didn’t. I just told her, and she said Nana isn’t my mother, that she’s your mother. Maybe I don’t want to fish.”
Dumbfounded, he ran his fingers back and forth through his short hair, punishing his scalp in his frustration. “You’d get this same attitude no matter what woman I brought home, wouldn’t you? Oscar Edwin, aren’t you ashamed? She’s important to me, son, and I want you to promise me that you’ll be fair, that you’ll give Lacette a chance. Would you like her to decide, for no reason, that she doesn’t like you?”
“No, sir.”
“All right. Remember the golden rule.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up and prepared to eat his supper, but Nick’s attitude continued to disturb him. The boy had his father and his grandparents all to himself. He was the center of their world, and he didn’t have to share him. He finished eating, cleaned the kitchen and telephoned Nick.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation, and—”
Nick broke in. “She’s not coming?”
“Of course, she’s coming. I called to ask you a question. You will grow up, and you will find a girl you like. How will you feel if I say to you I don’t like her? Don’t bring her here again? Huh? How would that make you feel?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
He wasn’t going to let Nick off lightly, because he knew the boy’s negative attitude could lead to intransigence. “I asked you how you would feel.” He’d raised his voice in a way that was unusual for him, and he wished he hadn’t done it, but he had a sudden sense of urgency. He had begun to realize how badly he wanted Nick to like Lacette and to accept her. “Well?” he persisted.
“I don’t think I’d feel good. Uh . . . say, do you like her?”
“Isn’t that obvious? I like her very much. Very much. Now, I want you to work on your attitude. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
After hanging up, Douglas cautioned himself that he shouldn’t be dispirited by Nick’s stance, but that he should not be complacent about it either. Along with a temper, the boy had stubbornness down to a fine art. He pondered telephoning Lacette and decided against it. His exchanges with Nick had left him raw and vulnerable. Maybe when the boy got to know her . . . He was getting ahead of himself; what if she didn’t like Nick?
Up to the time he spoke with Nick, Sunday couldn’t come fast enough. Now, although he dreaded it, he wouldn’t change his plans. He loved Nick with every atom of his being, but his son did not run his life.
“Oh, my goodness,” Lacette said as she awakened. “I hope this doesn’t mean I’m going to have a rotten day.” She tumbled out of bed and tried to shake off the premonition. “Get with it, girl,” she told herself. Douglas would be at her house at six-thirty to take her with him to Hagerstown, and he was as punctual as the sunrise. She showered, dressed, and had started down the stairs when the telephone rang. “Don’t let that be bad news,” she said to herself.
“Did Kellie spend the night with you last night?” her mother asked without preliminaries and in a voice that bordered on hysteria.
Lacette groped for a chair and sat down. “Mama, don’t you know where Kellie is?”
“No, I don’t. I was wondering if she was with you. She was mad as a hatter when she left here last night. I don’t know what’s going to happen to that girl.”
Lacette rested her elbow on her thigh and supported her head with her left hand, moving her hand restlessly over her left cheek. “Mama, I haven’t seen or spoken with her. I’m the one she’s mad at. Remember? Maybe she stayed with Hal.”
“Mad with you? She was furious with me. How can you be so casual about your sister? You want me to believe she’d spend the night with that horrible creature?”
She sensed that her patience was about to snap. Why couldn’t her mother face the truth about Kellie? “Slow down, Mama,” she said. “Unless he’s committed murder, he probably hasn’t done anything worse than some of the things Kellie has done.”
She heard her mother’s heavy exhalation of breath, her exasperation. “How can you speak that way about your sister?” There it is again, she thought. Her mother’s protectiveness of Kellie, closing her eyes to the truth and fooling herself with lapses of memory whenever it suited her.
“Listen, Mama. You may continue to paint Kellie pure as an angel, but she no longer has me bamboozled, and that has been a liberating force in my life. I’ll check back later in case you need me for something, but I’m due to leave for Hagerstown in twelve minutes, and I haven’t even had coffee. I’ll call you.”
I hope that’s the only jolt I get today, she thought as she sipped the coffee, blowing on the hot liquid between sips. She had her jacket on her arm when Douglas rang the doorbell. She didn’t want them to get into a clinch, though she hadn’t intended to make that obvious. His eyes widened when she greeted him with a quick kiss, stepped out of the door and locked it.
He drove until they reached Boonsboro and stopped for breakfast. “You seem a bit sluggish,” he said when she got out of the van. “I’m . . . uh, just kind of tired.”
He stopped walking and looked her in the face. “Tired? You just got up. Maybe you should get a check-up.”
“Oh, heavens no. I’ll be fine after I eat. All I had today was coffee.
His expression suggested that he doubted the validity of that explanation, but he didn’t put his thoughts into words. “All right, if you say so. Let’s have some sausage and waffles.”
“Cereal and juice are more to my liking. I need energy, Douglas, not pounds.”
Arm-in-arm they walked into the restaurant and, to her, their affectionate behavior seemed as natural as clean air after a rain. As she faced him across the booth in a drive-in restaurant on a highway that was little more than a country road, she thought she would like to look at him every morning when she awakened and every night just before she slept. She noticed that he chewed his food slowly and deliberately, so carefully that the muscles of his lean, square-jawed face barely moved.
He put his knife and fork aside, dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin and leaned back against the booth. “You’re so warm, open and . . . well, so feminine right now. I’d like to know what you’re thinking.”
Hot blood heated her face, and she lowered her gaze. He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “Tell me. Look at me and tell me.”
She couldn’t force herself to do either. “Please,” he whispered.
She didn’t look at him, but she told him, “I was . . . thinking about you. About us, I mean.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “That’s what I hoped.”
They didn’t talk much during the remainder of the trip, and she supposed that their relationship and its ramifications filled his thoughts.
When he parked the van at his parents’ house, Nick ran to meet his father, and they embraced as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Aren’t you going to greet Lacette?”
“Hi, Lacette,” Nick said, focusing on his feet.
“Nick!” Douglas said.
The boy raised his head, his facial expression once of unmistakable defiance and said, “How are you, Lacette? My granddaddy is going fishing with us.”
Something had changed since her previous visit, and she meant to speak to Douglas about it. She made herself smile and extend her hand to the boy. “Hello, Nick. How are you?”
“Okay.”
Douglas walked ahead of them and opened the door. When she paused, Edwina appeared, “Come on in. I’m so glad to see you. When Douglas didn’t join them, she knew Nick was getting a reprimand.
Lacette acknowledged Edwina’s warm welcome, but her mind had remained outside with Douglas and Nick.
“I hope you don’t mind if I tag along,” Oscar said. “I love to fish, and we can clean some and eat the catch right on the riverbank. I’ll do it, because I don’t think Douglas knows how, and he certainly wouldn’t want you to do it.”
“The more, the better,” she said, though she figured Oscar’s role involved policing Nick so that he wouldn’t act out. She looked at Edwina. “Won’t you come, too?”
“Not me,” Edwina said. “I never took to fishing.”
Douglas walked in, embraced his parents and asked Lacette, “Ready to go? What about you, Dad?”
“Sure thing. Haven’t fished for a while. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I’ll clean the fish for you.”
“I’d love for you to come with us even if you don’t clean fish,” Lacette said to Oscar.
“Then, we’d better get going,” Douglas said. “I’ll join you at the van in a minute.”
She got into the van, looked around and saw Nick in the backseat. “Do you like to fish, Nick?”
He took his time answering. “Sure.”
Douglas arrived then, bringing a picnic basket and a guitar. She hadn’t known that he played an instrument and figured he was going to great lengths to defuse Nick’s attitude and insure them a pleasant outing.
Douglas selected a site along the Antietam River bank, and Oscar built a fire in the hibachi while Douglas sorted out their fishing gear. I’ll bait your hook,” he told Lacette, took a worm from a jar and prepared to do that, but Nick ran over to him breathless as if he had an emergency.
“I got my line tangled, Dad. Please.”
“As soon as I finish baiting Lacette’s hook.”
“Why can’t you straighten out my line?”
Douglas stopped and looked his son in the eye. “I’ve known you for nine years, and this is only the second time that you’ve made me thoroughly ashamed. The first time was earlier this morning. One more act like this one and you’ll sit in the back of that van until we’re ready to leave here. Don’t play with me, Oscar Edwin. Your line was not tangled when I gave it to you, so wait.”
The movement of Douglas’s jaw was the only evidence of his anger. He spoke gently to his son, but in a firm, no-nonsense way. Nick’s face sagged into a pout when his grandfather ignored his efforts at attention grabbing. The boy caught the first fish, a four-pound bearded catfish, which he showed to his father and grandfather, but not to her. She pretended not to notice the child’s insult.
The adults caught trout, and when Oscar asked which they should eat for lunch, the word, trout, flew out of her mouth so quickly that Douglas turned and stared at her. If he had asked her, she would have told him why she wouldn’t eat any of Nick’s fish. While Oscar grilled the trout, Douglas picked the guitar and sang folk songs that she would have enjoyed if she had been happier.
Because her thoughts were elsewhere, she got a splinter under the nail of her right index finger when she attempted to pick up a stick. “What is it, Lacette? What’s the matter?” he said when she said “Ow,” and grabbed her finger.
She showed Douglas the splinter, and he began the task of removing it with the pliers in his Swiss Army knife. But from her peripheral view, she saw Nick approach them, and it surprised her to realize that she had expected the boy to interfere.
He did not disappoint her. “Daddy, I think I chewed a bone. See if there are any more bones in my fish.”
“Come here, Nick,” Oscar called, but the boy ignored his grandfather.
Douglas didn’t glance toward Nick until after he removed the splinter. Then, he took the boy’s hand, walked a few paces from her and stopped. “If I don’t find any bones in your fish, you’re grounded for one whole month.”
“But, Daddy—”
“You and I both know that your grandfather never leaves a bone in a fish that he filets. If you lied, you’re grounded. You did not obey your grandfather, so you lose one week’s allowance. As for your behavior toward Lacette, you’re on the verge of losing my respect. Bring me your plate.”
“Maybe I already chewed the only bone.”
“That doesn’t cut it. You asked me to check, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
She didn’t want to hear more, so she went over to Oscar, who was resting on a boulder, and sat beside him. “Nick is usually a good boy,” Oscar said, “but today, he seems to have taken leave of his senses. He’s not like this.”
“I’m sure of that,” she replied, and his head snapped around so that he faced her. His eyes narrowed and he moved his fingers back and forth across his jaw as she once saw Douglas do. Finally, he said, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
She nearly said, “I know,” but didn’t, because she didn’t want Oscar to know that Nick’s behavior distressed her.
Douglas drove Oscar and Nick home, told his mother good-bye and prepared to leave Hagerstown. “I enjoyed seeing you again,” She told Douglas’s parents, and she spared Nick a reprimand for more bad behavior by calling goodbye to him rather than going to his room where he’d been banished. She didn’t consider that either bad manners or cowardliness; she’d had enough of the boy’s antics and accorded herself the right to avoid more of his insults.
“I’m sorry for Nick’s behavior,” Douglas said as drove them back to Frederick.
She didn’t want to discuss it, although she knew he would think he had to do that. Her silence would be like wind-driven sleet in his face, but she wasn’t adept at pretense.
“I wanted the three of us to . . . to do some serious bonding, but . . . well, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, aware that both her voice and her demeanor bespoke resignation and disappointment.
Douglas glanced to his right, switched to the right lane and reduced his speed, as if speaking of something important required more concentration than he could muster while driving at seventy miles an hour. “I suppose he’s jealous; you’re the only woman he’s seen me with since he was six years old.”
She closed her eyes, leaned back and tried to speak calmly. “Douglas, you have to accept that Nick does not like me, and I would find it hard to love a child who behaved toward me as he did today. I’m sorry, but as much as I care for you, I know it isn’t going to work out.”
“I don’t want to hear that. Let’s leave this topic until a time when I’m not driving, or maybe we ought not to discuss it until you’ve had time for reflection.”
When they reached her house, he parked, locked the car and walked with her to her door. A warm breeze caressed her face, the moon dominated a cloudless, star-speckled sky, and the night insects and other animals broke the silence. On any other such night, she would have been caught up in the magic, captivated by it and the man at her side, but her heart was heavy as she opened the door.
“I want to come in,” he said.
But she shook her head. “I’m too troubled to be good company. Thank you for the day. For all our sakes, I wish it had turned out better.”
He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and looked at her, saying nothing, and she didn’t know how to say good night. He stepped closer. “Can we have lunch together tomorrow?”
“Douglas, I—”
He grabbed her shoulders. “I’m not giving you up. You hear me? Never! Kiss me.”
She gazed into his eyes, eyes that reflected the pain he felt, and he locked her to his body. As if by rote, she parted her lips, and he drained her of every emotion, every thought that didn’t concern him. “I’ll see you at twelve-thirty, and I’m buying.” He flicked his index finger across the tip of her nose and left.
Lacette awakened the next morning groggy and feeling as if she had just run a marathon and realized that the noise she heard was the ringing of the phone. She reached for it and nearly knocked over the lamp on the night table.
“Hello.”
“Lacette, were you asleep? What are you doing in bed this time of day? It’s ten-thirty.”
She sprang out of bed dragging the bedding with her. “What? Douglas?” She glanced at the clock and slapped her hand over her mouth. “Good heavens, I overslept. No wonder I feel as if I’d run a twenty-six mile obstacle course.”
“Maybe you ought to stay in and rest. I’m great at giving TLC.”
As upset as she was at having missed a morning at work, she laughed at his humor. “Thanks, but I have three important afternoon appointments. I’ll accept a nice lunch, though.”
“Consider it done.”
Her inability to rush troubled her, and she didn’t like the way in which she plodded along. “I’ll be okay as soon as I get some breakfast,” she said to herself. “I just need some food.”
As she dealt with a difficult and unexpected problem in her relationship with Douglas, Lacette couldn’t know the chasm over which her sister was about to cross or the deepening of the hole that Kellie was digging for herself.
Kellie hated that she had to ask Mabel for a couple of hours off. A month earlier Mabel sat at a typist’s desk across the aisle from her, and now she was Miss Big Shot Supervisor. She reined in her pride, walked down the hall to Mabel’s office and knocked.
“Come in.”
She stepped inside and closed the door. “I’m moving this evening, Mabel. Could I have a couple of hours off, please? I haven’t taken any leave this year.”
Mabel pushed her chewing gum between her gum and her jaw and looked hard at Kellie. “Lord, I sure hope you don’t plan to move in with Hal Fayson.” Kellie’s jaw dropped, and she fumbled for a chair and sat down. “That’s right,” Mabel said. “You know there aren’t any secrets in this town. Better watch what you’re doing, ’cause that brother ain’t worth shit, and I know four women, including my first cousin, who are living witnesses to that fact. Love ’em and leave ’em. That’s Hal. Girl, the way women act over him, he must have one fantastic bag of tricks. I hope you’re not pregnant.”
“No,” she said in a barely audible voice, stunned that after the care she’d taken to keep her relationship with Hal a secret, even Mabel knew about it.
“Don’t be so surprised that I know. I hear he was in Joe’s boasting that he had one of the town’s ‘top chicks,’ I believe is the way he put it, and when Chad York challenged him, he told him right in front of everybody how he met you. Yeah, you can have the afternoon off.” She shook her head. “I tell you, I never would have believed you’d do a thing like this. Your folks must be upset.”
What could she say? “Thanks a lot, Mabel. I’ll be in tomorrow morning on time.”
She managed to get out of the office without breaking down. She had known for some time that Hal held the trump card, but it shocked her that he played it so deftly and so ruthlessly. Moving in with him wasn’t her idea, but he’d sworn that he wouldn’t see her again unless she did, and she knew she’d prowl like a cat in heat if three days passed and she couldn’t be with him.
She had wanted the afternoon off so that she could pack and move before her mother came home from school, for she didn’t plan to announce that she was leaving home until it was a fait accompli. However, she had packed less than half of her things, when she heard the front door open and felt as if her belly had plunged to the floor. A sickening feeling pervaded her as her mother’s footsteps came closer and closer. She didn’t have time to close her bedroom door.
“What in the Lord’s name . . . Kellie, for God’s sake where have you been? I’ve been out of my mind. Did you stay with that man last night?” She walked into the room and stuck her knuckles to her narrow hips. “Did you?”
Kellie could feel her jaw twitching and her nostrils flaring, letting off steam as a steer does just before it charges. “Mama, I’ll be thirty-four years old in three months. I don’t ask where you’ve been when you come in at midnight.”
“But I come home,” she said. “I don’t cause my children to worry that someone may have killed me.”
“Excuse me, Mama. I’m busy, and I’m sorry, but I don’t feel up to this drama.” She folded several sweaters and some pants and put them into a suitcase.
“You’re packing. You’re going off somewhere with him.” Her voice rose with each word she spoke. Her hand gripped Kellie’s arm. “Don’t act like I’m not talking to you.”
“Please, Mama. You’ll be moving into your apartment next week. I’m . . .” Suddenly she stopped folding clothes, straightened up and looked at her mother. She didn’t need to apologize, and she wasn’t going to. “I’m moving in with Hal, and he’ll be here soon to get my things.”
“You what? Are you crazy? That foul-mouthed man doesn’t even have a job, and my daughter . . . Oh, Lord. This is too much.” She slumped onto the bed beside the suitcase, and tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Mama, please don’t start with the histrionics. It’s too late now to raise me. You should have done that when I was a child. I want him, and I’m going to live with him. And he has a job.”
Cynthia jumped up from the bed. “This is scandalous. You ought to have more self-pride.”
“Really? You have to admit that nobody has found me twisting and turning in the backseat of a car, making out in a garage. And since I’m not married, whose business is it but mine and his? Mama, let’s . . . let’s not say these things. I mean . . . I’m leaving. Don’t make things so that we won’t be speaking to each other.”
“You want me to just stand here and watch you ruin your life?” Her feistiness gone, she spoke in subdued tones, the fight gone out of her.
“Think back, Mama, to where this started and why. I have to hurry, because Hal is always impatient about everything.”
“I hope you can get him to change his style,” Cynthia said, “though nothing’s going to alter the picture that the people of Frederick have of him. Of all the no-good men in this town, you have to choose one who’s also a woman chaser and a professional infidel.”
“Mama, please let me get on with this. I’m going with him, and nobody’s going to stop me.”
Cynthia walked to the door, stopped and looked toward the ceiling as if searching for an angle, one thing that would change her daughter’s mind.
“Try to profit from my mistake, Kellie. I thought I would have climbed Mt. Everest to be with that man, but as I look back, the few hours I had with him are not worth a minute of the hell I’ve been going through ever since.”
She didn’t want to hear any more. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll . . . uh . . . say good-bye before I leave.”
She finished packing, put the remainder of her belongings in one closet, struggled down the stairs with her suitcases and put them in the foyer. She sat on one of them, chewing her nails until the doorbell rang.
“You ready?” Hal asked.
“In a minute. I have to go back upstairs and tell Mama good-bye. I’ll be right back.”
“Tell her good-bye? Why, for heaven’s sake? She’ll just give you a hard time. Come on.”
She knew that it was useless to try explaining that, in spite of all the awful things she’d done, she couldn’t treat her mother in that way.
When Cynthia didn’t respond to her knock, she opened the door, walked into the room and looked at her mother, a forlorn figure staring out the window. She placed a hand on Cynthia’s shoulder. “Uh . . . good-bye, Mama. I’ll call you.” She didn’t expect a reply and didn’t get one.
When she got to the van, he had the motor running, and she had barely closed the door when he released the brake and accelerated so sharply that the van jumped from the curb. “Let this be the last time you disobey me,” he growled and sped down the street at such a speed that she prayed silently beside him. He was mad, but at least he took it out on the car instead of her. She remained quiet, and tried to stay calm so as not to incite his ire.
He stopped at a delicatessen on the corner of Ice Street and Gerard Lane. “Get us a six-pack of Budweiser beer.” She turned to him for the money, but he shrugged. “You got money. I just started working today.”
She went into the store, bought the six-pack of beer and a package of Chiclets. “What else did you buy?” She told him. “You could at least have bought me some chips to snack on with the beer. Jeez. Don’t you even think?”
She squashed her temper and said nothing. He needed time to get used to them as a couple, but she hoped it wouldn’t take him too long. You don’t believe that, her common sense said, but she pushed that aside, too. “It’ll work out,” she told herself. It has to; I’ve burned my bridges, and I can’t go back.
While Kellie was rationalizing Hal’s behavior and trying not to see it as a harbinger of things to come, Marshall was on his way to the parsonage hoping to learn something of Kellie’s whereabouts. He hadn’t called her at her job that day, because he didn’t want to raise suspicions about her. Cynthia answered the doorbell after it rang nearly a dozen times.
“Who is it?”
“Marshall.” She opened the door. “If you’ve got company, we can talk right here. I still haven’t heard anything from Kellie. Have you?”
“I’m alone. Come on in. I just called you. Kellie was here when I got home from school. She packed most of her things, and about half an hour or so ago, Hal came and got her. She’s moving in with that awful man.”
He slumped against the wall. “Oh, my Lord. How could she do a thing like that? He doesn’t even have a job, and when he’s tired of her, she’ll be like the other women he’s used and left.”
“I tried to reason with her, but she said nobody was going to stop her. Marshall, I told her that what I did wasn’t worth a minute of the hell I’ve lived in ever since.”
He raised an eyebrow. He didn’t doubt that she was sorry, but he couldn’t absolve her, because he wasn’t a liar. She had hurt him so deeply that he still had nightmares about it. Catching her . . . He shook his body as a bird does after a bath, trying to remove the thought of it from his memory.
“That’s past, Cynthia. It’s also written in stone. If Kellie gives you her address or phone number, please call me. Meanwhile, I’ll ask Hal’s father if he knows where they’re staying. Good night.”
When he got back to his car, he phoned Lacette and told her what he’d just learned and added, “I’m devastated.”
“Come on over here, Daddy, and I’ll fix you some supper, provided you don’t mind ground steak.”
“Don’t mind? I’m on my way.”
He parked in front of Lacette’s house and cut the motor, but couldn’t muster the will to get out of the car. For the last thirty-five years, in crisis after crisis—and he’d known plenty of them—Cynthia’s understanding and encouragement, her faith in him and in his ability had sustained him. She had never buckled under adversity, and had given strength and courage to him and their children. For the first time since he left her, he missed her spirit, her fortitude, but now, she could neither influence her husband nor guide her children. Sadness engulfed him as he got out of the car and walked with a heavy heart to Lacette’s front door.
“Oh, Daddy,” Lacette said, when she opened the door. Her arms opened to him, and he thanked God for her. “Come on in. I decided to cook beef stew instead, but it won’t take long in the pressure cooker.”
“I’ll eat whatever you cook, but you know I love beef stew.” He didn’t care what he ate, and he didn’t want to make talk. “Lacette,” he said, “I’m just about done in. How did Kellie lapse into this kind of behavior? She has gone against everything that I stand for, everything that her mother and I taught her. Lacette, she’s amoral. She’ll do whatever it takes to get what she wants, and she doesn’t care who she hurts.”
“I guess I’ve always known her better than you and Mama know her, so although I’m astonished and sorry for what she’s done this time, I’m mainly surprised at the man’s identity.”
He walked to the window and looked out at the clear sky and young moon. “Funny. That’s the only part I understand; she used him and got the surprise of her life. She thought she’d exploit him and discard him, but instead, she got hooked. That’s what happens to people who are unprincipled. It catches up with ’em.”
“Come on in the kitchen,” Lacette said. “I have to cook the rice. The spinach won’t take but a few minutes.” They sat at the little table facing each other. “I hope he doesn’t mistreat her.”
Marshall ran his fingers through his graying, but still thick, hair. “Of course he’ll mistreat her. His father told me he’s a cruel man.”
“He must not have mistreated her so far.”
He slapped his right fist into the palm of his left hand and stopped himself just before his fist pounded the table. “I want you to listen to me. Don’t tie yourself to a man because of sex, because you’ll have no power over him. You’ll be so besotted that he’ll hold all the cards. You should meet as equals, and for goodness sake, don’t be a cringing schoolgirl who’s too prudish to be a wife.”
Maybe he’d said too much, but he wanted to spare her the tragedy that befell her mother and her sister. “Mark my word. The seeds of Cynthia’s and Kellie’s problems were sown years ago. Level with your husband. If things aren’t going as they should, talk with him and help him.” She put the food on the kitchen table and he said the grace. “Are you interested in anyone?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been seeing Douglas Rawlins, and I like him, but—”
His eyebrows shot up. “But what? He’s a fine man. I didn’t realize you knew him.”
“Well, he’s a widower, and I don’t like his nine-year-old son. The boy doesn’t like me, either.”
He fingered his chin. “Hmmm. Does Douglas know this?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh, and I told him I don’t see the point in our continuing the relationship.”
“Well, I certainly hope he ignores you. It’s your job to teach that child to love you. When he learns that you’re not taking his father from him, but that you’ll bring more joy and love into his life, you won’t be able to get rid of him. Douglas has finished landscaping at my house. Why don’t you get him to work on this place? Pay him, of course.”
“He volunteered, but I haven’t decided to let him do it.”
“I’d better get moving. Dinner was great. Have lunch with me one day soon.”
“I . . . uh . . . usually have lunch with Douglas.”
He looked down at her and laughed. “No point in continuing the relationship, huh? If Kellie gets in touch with you, let me know. You look a little peaked. You’re settled in your house, and your business is taking off, so you get some rest now.”
She kissed his cheek in exactly the way she did when she was a small child, and it brightened his life. But not for long, he thought, for he meant to find Kellie and Hal and deal with his daughter.
Nevertheless, he left feeling better than when he arrived. Maybe having two fine and loyal daughters was too much to expect.
Lacette sat alone in her living room with the television tuned to a 1940s movie starring The Three Stooges, not for the foolishness, but for the distraction. She didn’t want to think of the life her sister had chosen, consort to a man who no one seemed to respect. Her father’s advice also troubled her. Why would he tell her not to be a prude and that if things weren’t to her liking, she should discuss them with her husband? Kellie’s problem certainly didn’t suggest that she was prudish. Intuition told her not to ask her mother, so she dialed her aunt Nan’s number.
She relayed her question to Nan. “What did Daddy mean by that, Aunt Nan?”
“Sounds to me like a man speaking from experience. Did Cynthia ever tell you why she and Marshall broke up?”
She stiffened, but who could she talk with about it if not her aunt? “No, but Kellie spilled it. Seems she was indiscreet, and picked the wrong time.”
“What? Jumping James and John! With Marshall’s temper, she’s lucky to be alive.”
“Aunt Nan, please don’t tell anybody that. Doesn’t it mean that he couldn’t have been talking about her?”
“No, it doesn’t. It probably explains why she did what she did. Honey, some people don’t match, and they can try forever and nothing happens for the woman. Another guy comes along and makes the earth move. Of course, your mother was raised by a born-again stalwart who believed that if it wasn’t laid out in the Bible it was a sin, and when I first met Cynthia, she was even more pious than Mama Carrie. That must have been tough to deal with, even for a preacher.”
“Are you saying that what she did was excusable?”
“No, child, I am not. I don’t know any more than what you told me; I’m just surmising. Give her the benefit of the doubt, and take your father’s advice. It’s solid gold. If you can’t get it to work, get professional help. Plenty of experts making a living teaching people how to do what ought to come naturally. Thank goodness, Lim Sparks and I didn’t have that problem.”
Talking with her aunt left her with as many questions as answers and with a sadness that she probably hadn’t been conceived in glory but in frustration. At home she went into her kitchen, got a glass of grapefruit juice and had begun flipping TV channels in search of a movie when the telephone rang. She raced to it hoping to hear Kellie’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello.” It seemed strange not to say hello, this is Lacette, as she always did when living with her family.
“This is Douglas. You okay?”
“I’m fine, except I’m worried about Kellie. Daddy had supper with me tonight, and he said she moved into an apartment with Hal Fayson. Can you believe that?”
After a longer silence than she thought necessary, he said, “I don’t know. If he didn’t kidnap her, it must be what she wants.”
“I’ll never believe that, Douglas. Kellie has always been a snob. She believes most people are beneath her, and she lets them know it.”
“You’re right on the money, but let’s not talk about Kellie, if you don’t mind, though I understand that you’re concerned for her well-being.”
“Hmmm.” So he knew Kellie. Interesting. “You’re right. I am concerned. Daddy said you finished the work at his house. How about taking a look at mine?”
“Be happy to. I had planned to ask you about it tomorrow at lunch.”
She sucked in her breath and silently admonished her heart to slow down. “We’re having lunch together tomorrow?”
“We are. Lacette, you’re gentle and loving, and I know that Nick would love you if he got to know you. Give him a chance, won’t you?”
She wanted to ask why it was important to him, but she didn’t dare, because she didn’t want to deal with his answer. At least not then, when she was nearly traumatized by what she’d just learned about her parents and about Kellie.
“I . . . how am I going to do that if he resents sharing your time with me?”
“If you’re willing, I’ll make some opportunities. How about it?”
“All right. But don’t force it on him.”
“I won’t, and thanks for giving us a chance. I feel in my gut that we have something special, and I don’t want to lose it. See you tomorrow at lunch.”
She told him good night, hung up and searched the telephone book for entries under the name of Fayson, found one and dialed the number. “Hello, does Hal Fayson live here?”
“He did, but he moved, and I don’t have an address or a phone number for him. Sorry.”
She assumed that the person with whom she spoke was Hal’s father. Dispirited, she hung up. “Unless Kellie quit her job, I’ll see her tomorrow,” she vowed.
Kellie walked around the two-room, kitchen and bath apartment and told herself not to cry, that she’d fix it up and make it pretty. If she bought some paint, maybe Hal would paint the walls, and she was definitely going to buy a new toilet seat on her lunch hour the next day.
“I put some ground meat in the refrigerator, babe, so we can have some hamburgers. The rolls are in that bag over there.” He rubbed her backside and then patted it. She whirled around and looked at him ready to denounce him for being familiar with her, but the grin on his face reminded her that by moving in with him, she’d given him free rein.
Misunderstanding her reason for turning to him, he said, “You mean you don’t know how to make a hamburger? Well, now you’ll learn how the other half lives.”
“I hope there’s some salt and pepper here somewhere,” she said, controlling her temper so as not to incite his.
“Yeah, and onions, too. Put plenty of onions in ’em.”
Yes, she thought, and smell them for the next couple of days. She looked in the refrigerator and found the ground beef, and bag of onions, eggs, bacon, rolls, milk, ketchup, bread and the six-pack of Budweiser.
She walked into the living room—little more than a large cubicle furnished with an old blue sofa, two chairs of the same color, a wooden and well-scratched coffee table, a lamp and a TV on a metal stand—and got Hal’s attention. “I don’t see any salt, Hal.”
“Jeez, couldn’t you just run down to the corner? I’m watching Law and Order, for heaven’s sake.” He flicked off the TV, got his jacket and walked over to her. “Where’s the money?” She gave him a five dollar bill, and he returned with salt, pepper, and a bag of potato chips. If there was change, he didn’t mention it.
After eating three hamburgers and drinking three bottles of beer while watching television, he flicked off the set. “Come on babe, let’s go to bed.”
Horrified, she said, “I have to straighten up the kitchen and take a shower.”
He walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders. “Are you stalling on me? You can clean the damned kitchen tomorrow, and if I say you don’t need a shower, you don’t take one. Before she could protest, he picked her up, strode the few steps to the bedroom and dumped her on the sagging mattress of what was their bed.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth,” she said.
“So what? We ate the same thing.”
He flipped her over on her back, pulled off her jeans and bikini panties, knelt before her, hooked her legs over his shoulders and seared her with his tongue. She told herself that she hated him and tried to concentrate on the ugliness and untidiness around her, but he knew her. She tried to ignore the sensations that the tip of his tongue sent spiraling through her vagina, but he worked at her as if he knew she fought him and until she couldn’t control her twisting hips or the moans that escaped her.
“Oh, Lord,” she screamed, as she thrust herself up to his rapacious tongue and erupted into orgasm.
He stood, flung off his clothes and mounted her. “Get rid of this damned sweater.” She pulled it over her head letting her breasts hang free and threw it across the room. He sucked her left nipple into his mouth, thrust himself into her and started the tidal wave of ecstasy that engulfed her almost immediately. He stormed within her, guaranteeing her complete submission. She flung her arms wide in surrender as her body tightened around him, gripping him until he screamed his release, shook violently and went flaccid within her.
If I can make him feel like that, why does he act as if he holds all the cards? Is it because feeling like that is nothing special to him? She wanted to turn over on her side and bawl, but he imprisoned her between him and the mattress, and she knew he’d want more as soon as he rested. Never mind that she had just turned a corner and hopped a speeding freight train away from all she’d ever known. If he empathized with her feelings, he didn’t show it. She felt him growing inside of her and closed her eyes.
“How about some payback?” he asked her and rolled over on his back. She said nothing, but crawled down and did what was expected of her. In less than five minutes after she brought him to completion, he began to snore. She sat up in bed and let her tears fall in a puddle on the pink chenille bedspread.
The next morning, she got up before he did, took care of her ablutions and dressed for work before going into the kitchen to cook breakfast. She had learned the night they spent in the motel that his morning sexual appetite was ravenous, so she got the bacon frying first hoping that its odor would put his mind on food. When he groped his way into the kitchen, she poured his coffee and set a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs in front of him.
“Jeez, didn’t you at least toast some bread?”
The words, good morning, nearly slipped from her mouth, but she bit them back. “It’s in the toaster. I . . . uh have to be at work in half an hour. If I’m late, I may get fired, and we need the money.”
He stopped eating. “You don’t have to remind me that I don’t make as much as you, and if you do it again, I’ll let you feel the back of my hand across your mouth.” He swallowed the last of his coffee and patted his belly. “Get your things. I’m ready to go.”
She wanted to ask if he was dressed to go to work but didn’t dare. He let her out across the park from the City Hall building. “You come home in a good mood,” he said. “I got some neat little tricks I wanna show you. I’ll have you climbing all over me begging me for more.”
She wondered how she’d get to the outskirts of Frederick since she couldn’t afford taxi fare. “Can you pick me up here at four-thirty?”
“All right, but don’t be late.” He drove off and left her standing there.
She had never dreamed she would get pleasure from sitting in a half-cubicle at her desk and typing material that was so boring she paid no attention to its content. But on that morning, she saw only the good things about her job.
“How’s it going?” Mabel asked her. “I hope you don’t mind postponing coffee a few minutes. I need this right away.”
“No problem,” she said, and Mabel’s faced twisted into a frown. “You don’t mind?”
Kellie realized then that she was treating Mabel as she did Hal and reversed herself a little. “It can’t be so long that I’ll miss my morning coffee. Let’s see it.” She looked at the short manuscript. “I wouldn’t need but fifteen minutes if you had ever learned to write.”
As if relieved to have the old Kellie with her, Mabel smiled. “For a minute there, I was afraid you’d gotten docile. You watch it, girl.”
Yeah. No matter how she sliced it, she had hills to climb.
“Tired as I am, if I could afford to do it, I’d cancel this date,” Lacette said to herself two days earlier as she headed for Baltimore. But if she was going to succeed, she needed customers outside of Frederick. Higher education was a thing she understood, and she knew she could help that university increase its student body and attract more corporate support. She made her pitch to the university’s Board of Regents, the provost and the president and expected to hear the words, “We’ll let you know.” Instead, one of the regents invited her to lunch, after which she returned with him for a continuation of the morning meeting.
“We believe you can do the job,” the president told her. “We know you can’t accomplish what we need in a year, so we’re offering you a three year contract, and we’ll give you the budget you asked for, but no more.”
She signed the contract, shook hands with those present and left. In her excitement, she forgot that she was almost too exhausted to drive.
“Thank God I got back here safely.” She breathed the words silently as she parked in front of her house. “I’ll put the car in the garage later,” she told herself. Inside the house, she kicked off her shoes, stretched out on the living room sofa and went to sleep. She awakened to hear the telephone ringing, looked at her watch and realized that she had slept almost four hours.
“Say, were you asleep? It’s only nine o’clock.”
“Hi, Daddy. I was just snoozing. I had planned to stop by Kellie’s office today, but I had to go to Baltimore, and I didn’t get home till five. Daddy, I got the contract, and I’m going to put that university on the map. They gave me a nice budget, and I can do it.”
“Of course you can. I don’t know when I’ve heard such good news. Don’t forget the Lord while you’re swimming in your success. You hear?”
“Yes, sir. I’m going to drop in on Kellie tomorrow morning before I go to work.”
“Call me after you leave her. I expect she’s all right, but I need to know for sure.”
She made two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, got a glass of milk, took the food to the living room and turned on the television. “Oh, dear,” she said when she remembered that she promised Douglas she would call him when she got back from Baltimore. She ate one of the sandwiches, drank some of the milk and dialed his number.
“Hi,” he said after she greeted him. “When the phone rang, I swore that if it wasn’t you, I was going to report you as missing. How did it go?”
“I got the contract.”
“Congratulations. That’s worth a celebration. If it wasn’t so late, I’d invite myself over. I have some news, too. I now possess a house and a mortgage. Want to help me choose some furniture?”
“I’m glad you bought that house. It’s a great environment for a young boy.”
“Thanks. If you don’t help me, I’ll have to hire a decorator.”
She didn’t ask him the questions that came to her mind, such as why did you want my opinion on the house, my advice about its furnishings, and why do you want me to love your son? “Don’t make me laugh,” she said. “I can’t imagine you handing your house over to a decorator. I’ll help, but I warn you my tastes run to dark woods and earth colors.”
“Mine, too. I’d like to start the landscaping on your house tomorrow after I leave the hotel. Will that suit you?”
“Of course. Buy whatever you need and give me the bill.”
“See you at lunch tomorrow. Sleep well.” He hung up, and she knew he probably wouldn’t accept the money.
The next morning, Lacette left home half an hour earlier, drove to within a block of City Hall and parked. She walked across the park, inhaling the sweet scent of flowering hyacinths, freshly mowed grass and the young tree leaves still damp with early morning dew. She strode past the fountain that formed a centerpiece for the Federal buildings that surrounded it, many of them—built by the English and German settlers who founded Frederick in 1745—relics of a pre-Revolutionary War era.
“Hi, Herman,” she said to the building guard, “I just want to see Kellie for a few minutes.”
“Sure, Lacette. How’s your new business going?” He handed her a pass.
“Great, so far. Thanks for the pass.”
In different circumstances, she would have told her sister that she planned to stop by the place where she worked, but these were not normal circumstances. For her parents’ sake as well as her own, she had to know whether Kellie was all right and whether Hal Fayson had coerced Kellie into living with him.
Before she could speak, Kellie glanced up from her computer, saw her and gasped. “What are you doing here?”
Lacette dragged a chair from a desk nearby and sat down. “I want your address and home telephone number,” she whispered. “And I want to know if you’re all right and whether you need anything.”
“I’m not supposed to have visitors here, Lacette.”
“Then, give me that information, and I’ll leave. If you mislead me, I’ll be right back here tomorrow morning.”
She wrote the address and apartment number. “We don’t have a phone yet. Lacette, please don’t come there. Hal won’t like it. You’ll make things difficult for me. Don’t worry. I went with him, because I can’t stay away from him. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry. Thanks for this.” She put the paper in her briefcase, leaned over and kissed Kellie’s cheek and, to her amazement, Kellie didn’t shrink away from her gesture of affection as she usually did. She hoped that meant something, that this blood sister who almost never expressed genuine affection had learned to feel for others.
“Now go. I don’t want to get fired.”