In a Skyville fall, the greens were deeper and the reds richer than any painter’s palette. The air that time of year was so sweet, you could taste it. During the day, it was still warm enough to sit out on the porch. Only at night could you feel winter’s breath.
By fall, two things of note had happened. Dillard and Emilia Mae had kissed several times. The first time was more of a peck, but the second time, Emilia Mae centered her lips on Dillard’s and tentatively stuck her tongue in his mouth. Initially, it was as if no one was home but gradually, his tongue found hers.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
“Well, we have all the time in the world to practice.”
They spent the rest of the fall “practicing.” They would be on one of their walks or find themselves alone in the bake room. They’d look at one another, eyebrows raised conspiratorially, and one would say to the other, “Shall we practice?” They’d grab each other, the holding feeling more imperative than the kissing. Because they were roughly the same height, their mouths met naturally. They’d lick each other’s teeth and let their tongues slide over one another’s gums. They learned each other’s bodies. They told some of their secrets: “Geraldine snores like a goat.” “My mother said she’d never loved my father.” “The Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz became imaginary friends for a while. I believed they really existed.” “Sometimes I talked to the trees in Skyville as if they were my friends.” “When I was younger, food was my best friend.”
Not that she was skinny now, but Emilia Mae no longer needed the weight as her coat of arms. Dillard looked her up and down. “I can’t imagine. You look just right to me.”
Dillard told himself that everything about Emilia Mae was just right. She liked him, that was clear. She was easy to talk to, smart, well-read. She made “normal” seem easy to him, and wasn’t “normal” what he craved? Kissing her, touching her body, it wasn’t like it was with Nick but it was all right. A fair exchange for what came with her: Alice, Geraldine, a family, a job, a home. Yes, Emilia Mae was just right.
The second thing that happened that fall was that Dillard became a regular at the First Baptist Church. After church, he and Reverend Klepper would walk together while Cora would drive Xena to lunch at the Wingos’ house. As was typical at those lunches, Geraldine cooked a hot meal—a pork roast on this day—and the discussions would range from current events to local gossip. Everyone shouted with the hopes that Xena could hear them. On this Sunday, Geraldine became irate about a book someone had described to her. She said it was about a forty-year-old European poet who seduces a twelve-year-old girl, and that there was a copy of it in the New Rochelle Library.
“This Nab-a-ko-vitch, or whatever his name is, ought to be sent back to Russia,” said Geraldine. “Imagine, writing such filth and having it in a library where anyone can pick it up. It’s shocking. And you know me, I’m as open-minded as the next person.”
Cora had to laugh at Geraldine’s outrage. “Have you read it?”
“No, and I never will.”
“So how do you know it’s all the things you say it is?”
“You do know what it’s about, do you not?”
“You just told us. I also know what Bambi’s about, and it turns out to be a sweet story.”
“Bambi?” said Xena. “I loved that film.”
“Me too,” said Cora.
Reverend Klepper, in his early fifties by now, was struggling to keep up with the more permissive culture of the times. “I haven’t read Lolita, but I know about its contents. Humans often grapple with emotions or inclinations that are not considered proper or even normal. That this writer dared to put those feelings on paper seems to me a great act of courage. Certainly, we ought not to judge it until we’ve read it.”
“I’ve read it,” said Emilia Mae. “And I’ll admit, it’s disturbing, even brutal at times, but it is one of the truest love stories I’ve ever read.”
“I’ve read it, too,” announced Dillard, pulling off one of Earle’s crewneck sweaters while holding his cap on his lap. “Emilia Mae is right. The main character has unnatural yearnings and acts on them, despite the consequences he knows he’ll face. Truth be known, I found it more sad than shocking. The author makes you feel empathy for the main character, which, given the subject, is a pretty hard thing to do.”
Geraldine folded her legs beneath her faux leather miniskirt. “Honey, I’m sure you’re right about all that. But let me ask you and Emilia Mae, would you want Alice reading that trash?”
Dillard shook his head. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, not now. She’s way too young to understand that kind of obsession and desire. But I’ll tell you this: I’ll bet when Alice is ten years older and she does read this book, she’ll find it in her heart to feel more sympathy than revulsion for the main character.”
“And I’ll tell you this,” said Geraldine. “Even ten years from now, I sure wouldn’t give Alice permission to read this book.”
“Mother, ten years from now, Alice won’t need your permission to do anything,” said Emilia Mae.
Mercifully, Cora took the conversation off in a different direction when she speculated that ten years from now, no one would read books anymore. Everyone eagerly piped in with predictions of what ten years from now might hold.
By two thirty, lunch was over. While Dillard helped Geraldine clear the table, Emilia Mae walked Xena and the Kleppers to their car. Emilia Mae didn’t give the lunch a second thought until Geraldine cornered her in the baking room the following Wednesday morning. She had a dish towel wrapped around her neck and smudges of liner under her eyes. “Let me ask you a question. Did you not think that Dillard was rude to me the other afternoon?”
“What other afternoon?”
“You know, when we were talking about that horrid Russian writer.”
“Oh, you mean about the book you never read?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. I thought Dillard was harsh with me.”
“Dillard wasn’t harsh, he just felt strongly about what he was saying.”
“Even so, I didn’t appreciate being spoken to in that tone of voice under my own roof.”
Geraldine tried again on the following Sunday, and that lunch went much smoother with everyone chatting about their favorite television shows. Afterward, Emilia Mae walked the Kleppers to their car. While Dillard helped clean up, Geraldine came up behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his curved back. “Honey, why were you so short with me last week when we talked about that awful little book? You know I only have Alice’s best interests at heart.”
Dillard stepped back so fast that Geraldine fell backward and knocked over one of the kitchen chairs.
“I’m not your honey.”
“No need to take offense, it’s just a term of endearment,” she said in her breathy voice.
Dillard said nothing.
Geraldine regained her composure. “Let me ask you this. Do you find me attractive?”
“Yes, ma’am. I find you attractive, though probably not in the way you’d like me to.”
“Well, that pretty much says everything.”
In defeat, Geraldine’s body seemed to release itself. Her chin sagged; her mouth went slack. Her eyes squinted to the size of paper cuts.
This was the tableau Emilia Mae confronted when she walked back into the kitchen.
“Did somebody die or something?” she asked.
“People aren’t the only things that die,” said Geraldine as she walked out of the room.
“What was that all about?” asked Emilia Mae, picking up the chair.
“You know how your mother can get temperamental sometimes?”
She laughed. “Umm, yeah.”
“Well, this was one of those times.”
“What did she get temperamental about?”
“Nothing I care to talk about,” said Dillard. He finished washing the dishes, walked to the dining room table, and picked up his cap from where he’d left it on the chair.
When he came back into the kitchen, Emilia Mae rubbed her hand up and down his arm. Dillard was wearing her father’s camel-colored crewneck sweater. “This color really complements your eyes,” she said. “It was one of my father’s favorites. He bought it at Brooks Brothers in the city shortly before he died. He said it was something young John Kennedy would wear. That was the highest compliment he could pay anyone. My mother, on the other hand, has always thought Kennedy is a snob.”
“That’s too bad,” said Dillard, still distracted.
“What’s too bad?” asked Emilia Mae. “Don’t you like Kennedy?”
“What? No, it has nothing to do with Kennedy.”
“He’s Catholic, you know.”
“Who, your dad?”
“No, but Kennedy is. Reverend Klepper thinks it’s stupid that everyone’s so nervous about him being a Catholic. Like he’s got a hotline to the pope in his basement or something.”
“Kennedy has a hotline to the pope in his basement?”
“Never mind, this is a dumb conversation,” said Emilia Mae, not bothering to hide her annoyance.
“You’re a prickly one, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I’m a prickly one?” Her voice rose. “I’m trying to have a conversation with you, and you get all vague when I ask you what my mother got temperamental about. You always do that, tell me that you don’t want to talk about this or that. You make it really hard sometimes.”
Dillard picked up the dish towel again and started twisting it. “Maybe I should leave; go back to Skyville,” he said. “I don’t seem to have the knack for getting along with Wingo women.”
“That’s a great idea, Dillard.” When Emilia Mae got angry, her voice went curvy. “Run away, again. That seems to be something you’re good at. You bump into a little trouble, and boom, you’re off like Sputnik.”
“You know nothing about my little trouble.” Dillard spoke in the kind of soft voice people use right before they hit someone. “You don’t know where I’ve been, or why I’m here, so I’d be much obliged if you’d keep your opinions about my troubles to yourself.”
He took off the camel sweater, set it on the kitchen table, put on his cap, and walked out the door.
“Don’t go,” Emilia Mae shouted after him.
He stopped and turned toward her. “Why not? I don’t seem to be doing anybody here any good.”
“That’s not true,” said Emilia Mae. “You’re everything to Alice. You’re everything to me. You’re as good here as you are anywhere else.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I know I can be difficult, but I don’t mean to be.”
“Yeah, well, who isn’t? I’m not exactly Miss Charm School. The truth is, if anything, you’ve made it better around here. Your leaving would be the worst thing that’s happened to any of us since my dad died.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I need a break.”
He headed out the door. Emilia Mae watched him walk down the street. His shoulders were hunched. He was rubbing his hands together. They were probably cold. Again, she thought of that first night at dinner, when he abruptly got up and left the table. She tried finding relief in his leaving but couldn’t.
At the same time, Dillard was telling himself that leaving was the only rational thing to do, that once again, he was hurting people. Those people had expectations of him. They thought he was someone he was not. They wanted something from him he didn’t think he could give. He couldn’t bear to tear apart another family. He walked toward Main Street and passed Frank’s Music Store, where he’d planned to buy a harmonica for Alice. He wished he’d said goodbye to her. But maybe that was better left unsaid. He would have had to explain himself, and he wasn’t ready to do that with anybody. Emilia Mae was right: He was running away. Where was he running to? Skyville? There was nothing for him in Skyville. If Nick were alive, he’d run to Nick, even if it meant exposing their relationship. He walked to the edge of town, to the train station. Trains left for Grand Central on the hour. He could go to New York City. From there he could catch a train to anywhere in the country. California? Texas? Florida? He’d never been to any of those places. He could go there anew. Change his name. Get a job but keep his distance, not get embroiled in another family again. He walked faster. At the station he saw there was only a seven-minute wait for the next train to New York City. This was a sign; his leaving was meant to be. He’d held out false promises to the Wingos. Just like Sharlene and the children, they thought he was someone he was not. The Wingos didn’t deserve him and his deception. He dug his hands into his pockets. A late November chill had started to claim them; he could feel the numbness in the tips of his fingers. On the train, he took a window seat in the unheated car. He was barely able to extract the $4 fare from his pocket. He rubbed his hands together the way Emilia Mae did and watched the trees whiz by, most of them bare by now. He wondered if trees mourned their leaves in the fall. It made him sad to think about those trees, so majestic and proud in their summer foliage, bare and stark against the failing sunlight. That’s how he felt. With Nick, he was full and majestic. Now, bare and stark.
As the train moved closer to the city, he could see lights on in the humble houses by the tracks. He imagined kitchens with families sitting around the table. In the darkness, he made out a bicycle lying in the front yard, a swing in another. Normal families. Home. Love unspoken. Love was something he’d never taken for granted. He remembered the night his mother left, how his father had slumped when she shot the words at him: “I never did love you, Beau Fox.” Until Nick, he’d never thought love was possible. Now that he knew what it was, he craved it more than anything.
It was dark when the train pulled into Grand Central. He walked up the concrete stairs, following people whose quick steps made him think they had someplace to go. Where was he going? Food. He was hungry. He’d eat and then study the train schedule to see where he’d go next. The hot dog cost $1. That left him with $9. He’d walked out of the house with $14. He remembered what it was like to have no money in his pocket, always begging for odd jobs, skipping meals, sleeping in public places. He’d rather die than go back to that life.
There were few places to sit at Grand Central, but he finally found a bench on the lower concourse. The floor was cracked and the dull lighting makeshift. As night turned into overnight, Dillard sat on that bench and thought about where he should go and what he wanted. He was sick of being the guy who kept running. He felt tired and lost. Alice would never understand why he’d left, just as he’d never understood why his mother had left. Emilia Mae had said, “You’re everything to me.” He’d never been everything to anyone except Nick. Emilia Mae liked him. Possibly loved him. He thought again about normal, and how with Emilia Mae, normal was in reach. Alice, Geraldine, safety, the whole shebang, this was his chance, maybe his only chance. He could love Emilia Mae in his way. He could give her the kindness and home she craved and build a life with her that worked for both of them. He already loved Alice; that would be no problem. And Geraldine? He would flirt with Geraldine and flatter her. This wasn’t as it was with Nick’s family. He wasn’t stealing anyone away, wasn’t causing any rupture. He could do this. Yes, he would go back to New Rochelle and hope that Emilia Mae would forgive him.
He went upstairs to find that the sun had risen, and the station was bustling. There was a six forty-five train to New Rochelle, which gave him twenty minutes to get some coffee, a donut, and buy his return ticket.
With $2.50 in his pocket, he disembarked in New Rochelle and headed to the Wingo house.
He got to the house right after Alice had left for school. Geraldine had already gone to the bakery, and Emilia Mae was heading out the front door just as he was walking in.
“Have you come for your things?” she asked in a dry voice.
“No. Do you have a minute to talk?”
She looked at her watch and said, “I told Mother I’d be at the bakery by nine.”
“This will only take a few minutes. Please, can we talk?”
Emilia Mae sat on the top step of the front porch. “Talk fast; I only have about seven minutes.”
He sat next to her. When he looked her in the eye, she turned away, but not before he noticed that her eyes were swollen. “I know I acted foolishly yesterday. It was an impulsive thing to do. I thought I was doing everyone a favor. Well, that’s not entirely true. You were right, I was running away. I was scared of everything. Of hurting people. Disappointing them. You, mainly. I’ve thought about it long and hard. I’d like to come back, if you’ll let me. I could be happy here. We could be happy here. What do you think about that?”
Emilia Mae turned and stared in Dillard’s eyes. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said.
He nodded.
Sunlight shot through the trees and turned Dillard’s blond hair silver. The light underscored the circles under his eyes and the traces of wrinkles around his mouth. Emilia Mae saw what he might look like in thirty years. It gave her comfort to think of growing old with him. She was nobody’s idea of a dream girl, but at this moment, with Dillard aglow in the sunlight, a feeling of love washed over her. She could be very happy here with him. Before she could think about the consequences, she grabbed his wrists and in a cracking voice said, “Don’t go. Please don’t ever go.”
Her words haunted Dillard. He knew what it felt like to try to hold on to someone, and how futile it was. Mommy, don’t go.
For the first fifteen years of his life, he lived next door to a plot of land filled with live oak trees. He loved those oaks, with their embracing arms and long shiny leaves. The trees seemed proud and friendly, and he named them Oliver and Peter and other names he’d found in books. Sometimes, when the trees made that sshhssshing sound in the wind, Dillard believed they were friends talking to him, and he would reply to their imagined endearments or questions.
Then a family from up north bought the land and built a house on it. Worried that the oaks would shade their front yard, they began cutting them all down. For weeks, trucks would arrive with saws and ropes and hoisting equipment. Dillard would watch the men denude the trees, one branch at a time. He’d cover his eyes and slam his hands against his ears as the saws hacked through the wood. “Don’t go, please don’t go,” he’d plead. The tree killers would saw the trunk down to a manageable height, then lasso a rope around the top of the tree and yank and saw until the tree was beheaded. Dillard cried for each of them. He cried because they were his friends, but he also cried for how powerless he was.
That’s what this felt like.
He knew what was behind Emilia Mae’s pleas. He knew what she wanted from him was a promise, one he worried would inevitably lead to disappointment. But this promise to her also came with promises to himself that were difficult to ignore. He would have all the things he never thought possible for him. Yes, he could make it work. He couldn’t afford not to make it work.
Marriage meant a ring. Maybe two. It meant placating Geraldine, which would probably cost him more than the rings. He put his arm around Emilia Mae. “I promise, I won’t do this again.”
Later that day as he sat in his room, he dragged out the cigar box of memorabilia that he kept under his bed and pulled out one of the photographs. “If I did this, I could finally stay still, find my place,” he said to the photograph. “Something like this might never come my way again. I know you understand.”
On his first day off, Dillard went to the jewelry store on Main Street. The wooden floor planks creaked beneath his feet, and the place smelled of Black Flag bug killer. The salesclerk showed Dillard dozens of rings. All of them cost well over $100. Dillard put his hands in his pocket and said to the clerk, “I wonder if it’s possible to find one of these that costs less than a hundred dollars?”
The clerk wore a woven striped jacket with wide lapels and brown slacks that had a slight sheen to them. Dillard was no connoisseur of fashion, but something about the clerk’s clothes and the way he kept licking his lips as he talked told him that the man didn’t have hundreds to spend on rings himself.
“You know about estate sales, don’t you?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“After somebody dies, the family sells off some of their possessions, like jewelry, for example.” He licked his lips and pointed to a case of drawers. “We get a lot of that kind of stuff around here. Lemme see what I’ve got.” He opened boxes and searched through small bags. He filled the glass counter with silver knives and forks, watches, bracelets, and a bronze statuette of the three wise monkeys before he came upon an old ring. “So, what do you think of this?”
The clerk held the ring up to the light. It looked to be gold with a blue stone in the middle. There were tiny flecks of other stones around it that might have been diamonds. “Sapphire,” said the clerk. “Looks real to me, but we’ll see what happens when I clean it up. The rest of the stuff, I dunno.” He took out a cloth and polished the ring. When he held it up to the light again, he said, “Yup, the real thing. I can tell you right now, for sixty-eight dollars you’ve got yourself a nice little engagement ring. Whaddya say?”
Dillard held the ring and imagined it on Emilia Mae’s finger. She had big hands; apparently so did the person who had worn this. He stuck it on his pinky.
“Sure is pretty,” he said. “But I think it’d be prettier at fifty-eight.”
The clerk picked at his red lips. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No, sir, but I’m looking to marry someone who is.”
“May I ask who?”
“Sure,” said Dillard. “Emilia Mae Wingo. Her family owns Shore Cakes.”
The clerk laughed. “Oh, yes, the bakery girl. I’ve been eating their strawberry shortcake since I was yay high.” He held his hands to the height of a three-year-old. “I’ll tell you what, you gimme sixty-two dollars and finally make that old bakery gal a bride.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Dillard. “I’ll give you sixty and you’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll need it by Christmas, which means I’ll pay you fifteen dollars a week until then. How about that?”
The clerk had to laugh. “Okay, mister, it’s a deal. I’ll keep this thing nice and safe until you’re ready.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Dillard. “And one more thing. This is a secret, between you and me, if you’ll be so kind as to keep it that way.”
“Sure thing,” said the clerk.