Beautiful Little Fools(29)

“What kind of plan do we need, Ems?” I asked now, taking a bite of my ham. I was sweaty and famished after a long morning at the driving range. My shoulders ached, even from a motion as simple as lifting my sandwich to my mouth.

“You and I both need to get picked to go to California. Jerralyn thinks she has this in the bag since she’s from there.” Mary Margaret rolled her eyes, and I laughed a little. “I know I was just the team alternate. But I want to beat her. I’ve never seen the Pacific Ocean, and wouldn’t you and I have a grand time together?”

I finished off my sandwich in one large bite, wiped my hands with the linen napkin I’d stolen from the cafeteria, and smiled at her. “At this point, you’re gonna get picked to go over me. My game hasn’t been, shall I say, up to par, since I got back.”

Mary Margaret laughed at my pun; then her face grew completely serious. “Extra practice!” Mary Margaret exclaimed. “That’s what we need, Jordan.”

“Extra? How exactly will we do that?” We already practiced most of the day and had such a strict schedule there was barely time to brush our teeth in the common bathroom at night before lights-out. And Mrs. Pearce hardly let us walk out here to eat our lunch alone, much less go off on our own to do, well, anything.

Mary Margaret looked at me, her normally green eyes a crisp, almost cerulean color in this bright midday sun. “We’ll sneak out tonight after lights-out. And play ourselves a round of night golf.”

“Night golf?” I shook my head. It barely made sense. How would we see?

“It’s how Charlie taught me to play back home. Girls weren’t allowed on the course near us in Nashville, you know. So he’d sneak me on at night. I learned to play in the dark, with only a lantern and the moon. Charlie used to say that distance on the course was a thing you felt, not saw.”

Mary Margaret’s older brother, Charlie, hadn’t come back from the war alive, and every once in a while she’d have a funny story about him that she’d tell me seemingly out of nowhere.

Grief, she told me once when she was talking about Charlie, was forever. An endless, winding river.

But I never really understood what she meant until now.



* * *



LATER THAT NIGHT I tried to suppress a nervous giggle as we ran out behind the dormitory toward the course. We waited an hour after lights-out, hoping Mrs. Pearce would already be fast asleep, and we’d tiptoed down the stairs, not daring to make a sound. Once we got outside, the sky was clear, the moon full and bright, illuminating the first tee box up ahead. But the ground was dark, and it was hard to see where we were stepping.

“Are there snakes in South Carolina?” I whispered, suddenly remembering a time as a little girl when Daddy had taken me camping and I’d nearly stepped on a rattler walking back to our tent at night. Rattlers were prone to sneak up on you like that in the summer in Kentucky, Daddy told me.

“Sure,” Mary Margaret said. “I suppose there are… rattlers and cottonmouths and…” She gently swiped my ankle with the toe of her shoe, and I nearly jumped ten feet in the air and had to stifle a scream. She covered her mouth to keep her giggles from erupting too loudly.

“You… you… harlot,” I whisper-yelled at her.

“That’s not very nice. You hurt my feelings.” But she laughed, not at all serious. “And, besides, you’re with me every second of every day. You know I am most certainly not a harlot.”

We’d reached the course by then, far enough away from the dormitory for anyone to see or hear us, and we stood at the first tee box and both erupted into a wild fit of giggles. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe, and then almost inexplicably my laugher turned into big gulping sobs.

“Oh, sweetie.” Mary Margaret rubbed my back gently. “Just let it all out now.”

Maybe she was right, that I had to let it out. I hadn’t been able to cry at the funeral because nothing around me had felt quite real then. The casket had been closed, and in my mind it hadn’t felt like Daddy inside at all. The only tears I’d had since Daddy’s death were the ones that came to me in the middle of the night in fits of dreams. But now, here, in the dark, out on the golf course with Mary Margaret, I just couldn’t stop the tears.

It hit me. It really hit me. Daddy was gone forever, and Daisy was married now. I only vaguely knew Aunt Sigourney from a few visits to see her in New York City when I was younger, back when Daddy was still in prime health. “I have no one,” I choked out through my tears. “I’m all alone.”

“Stop it.” Mary Margaret’s voice was soft, but stern. She stood in front of me and held my shoulders in her hands. “Stop it right now, Jordan Baker. You are not all alone. I’m right here. You have me.”

I looked up at her, and my tears stopped as suddenly as they’d come on, like a late July thunderstorm. Mary Margaret’s face was close to mine now. The full moon illuminated all her features, her tiny button nose, and her sweet plump cheeks. She opened her mouth a little to say something more, then closed it again. Her lips were mere inches from mine. And I suddenly had the strangest thought. All I had to do was take one step closer. One more step, and our lips would touch.

My eyes met her eyes, and it was like she was thinking what I was, feeling what I was. She moved her hand from my shoulder, traced her thumb across my cheekbone, gently wiping away one last tear.