Eventide (Plainsong #2)(65)

I didn’t do anything.

Yeah. I heard you before about that. That’s just bullshit. But you and me both know that’s what it is. Because I know what a girl like you can do. I’ve seen it over and over again. And I bet you’ve never been in the backseat of a car before either.

What do you mean?

You know exactly what I mean.

Go to hell.

That’s right. Just keep that up. But you better mind me. Hear?

The girl sat looking at his face in the mirror.

I said, did you hear me.

Yes, she said. I heard you. All right? I heard you.

Okay. Let’s get this over.

They got out of the car and walked up the dirt path to the trailer. Inside, the officer told Betty and Luther what the girl had been accused of. He said that she shouldn’t be wandering around the streets and that they had to be more careful and keep better control of her. And why isn’t she in school? he said.

She just got here, Luther said. We ain’t had no time to put her in her classes yet.

Well, she better start going. As it is, she’s got too much time on her hands. I’ll be checking back with you on this.

After he left, Betty and Luther tried to talk with her, but within five minutes she got fed up. Oh, f*ck you, she said, and went back and lay down on Joy Rae’s bed. She didn’t come out for supper, but instead took the phone into the room and called Raydell to tell him to come get her. Raydell said it was too late. You better come over here, goddamn it, she said. You better come get me.

She stayed in the bedroom with Joy Rae until eleven that night. Then Raydell drove up in front of the trailer and honked the horn, and she came out to the front room where Betty and Luther were sitting on the couch. Don’t try and stop me, she said.

Betty began to cry and Luther said: You can’t go. Think about your mama.

Fuck you, you fat f*cker. And I’m sick of my mama. Look at her. She makes me sick. This ain’t my family. I don’t have no family.

Then she slammed the door and ran out the path to the car. She slid in beside the boy and the car roared away, headed up Detroit Street, pointed toward the highway and out of town.

Hearing the car speed away, Betty threw herself on the floor and began to thrash about and wail and kick. She kicked over the coffee table. Luther bent over trying to quiet her. It’s going to be all right, honey, he said. It’ll turn out okay. She didn’t mean them things she said. The two children Joy Rae and Richie came out of their rooms and stood in the hall, watching their parents, not at all surprised by what they saw, and after a while they turned and went back to bed.

In her bedroom Joy Rae went through the items on her dresser but the lipstick and mascara were gone now. She looked at her face in the hand mirror. Only a faint trace of red still showed on her mouth.





34


IN THE NIGHT SHE WAS LYING IN THE BACK BEDROOM with the blond man from the bank. Dena and Emma were asleep in their room up the hall, and it was a springlike night and the window was open to the fresh air and Mary Wells and Bob Jeter were talking softly in the dark. You don’t have to leave, she said. I don’t care about the neighbors. There’s just the two old widow women next door. They’ll talk anyway.

I better go, he said.

Please, she said. She was lying on her side facing him, her arm across his chest. Isn’t it nice here? Stay with me.

What about your daughters?

They’re beginning to get used to you. They like you already.

No they don’t.

Why do you say that?

They don’t care for me at all. Why would they?

Why wouldn’t they? You’re nice to them.

I’m not their father.

Stay, she said. Just for a while longer.

I can’t.

Why not?

Because.

Because you don’t want to.

That’s not it, he said. He slid out from under her arm and turned away and rose from the bed, and in the dark he began to collect his clothes. Moving about the room he hit his foot against the leg of a chair. He cursed.

What happened? she said.

Nothing.

I’ll turn the light on. She switched on the bedside lamp and watched him dress. Unlike her husband in Alaska, this man was very careful about his dressing. He stepped into his underwear, settling the waistband and drawing out the seat, and pulled on his shirt and pants and stood spreading his knees to support his pants while he tucked in the shirttail, then he buckled the leather belt with its thin brass clasp and afterward sat on the bed and pulled on his dark socks and dark shoes. His hair was disordered and he stood bent-kneed before the mirror at her dresser and combed his thin blond hair neat again and combed through his mustache and goatee. Then he put on his suitcoat and shot his shirt cuffs.

She was lying on her side with the sheet over her, watching him. One of her shoulders was exposed, it gleamed and was very pretty in the light. Give me a kiss before you go, she said.

He stepped to the bed and kissed her, then walked noiselessly down the hall and out through the front room into the cool night air. She got up from bed with the sheet around her and followed him, watching him drive away on the vacant street, seeing him pass under the corner streetlamp, then onto Main and out of sight. Shadows from the lamp were like long stick figures thrown out behind the trees and all along the street were the quiet mute fronts of houses. She sat down in the dark room. An hour later she woke shivering and went back to her bed.