The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(18)

Viviane made a face. “Ha-ha.”

Jack then revealed the place where he’d cut his ankle on the runner of a sled one winter, the circular scar from a childhood vaccination, and the pockmark along his nostril left over from the time everyone in second grade came down with the chicken pox. “So, see? I’m much more scarred than you’ll ever be. Probably always will be.”

There were other scars — from wounds that leave the skin unmarred. Of those, Jack certainly had many more than Viviane. Each pondered this in their own silent way as they lay side by side, the air around them growing colder still and the moon moving higher in the sky.

“Sometimes I think my dad must hate me,” Jack said after a moment.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Viviane whispered, too quickly to be convincing. She didn’t actually believe that John Griffith had the capacity to care about anyone other than himself. Even if he tried. Even if he wanted to. Viviane could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard her own mother say I love you, and she’d still have a few fingers left over. But that didn’t mean Emilienne wasn’t capable of love. It just meant, for a reason Viviane had yet to understand, she preferred to hide it.

“Sometimes,” Jack started, “I think he wouldn’t hate me as much if only —”

“If only what?”

Jack turned and gave her a sad smile. “If only you and I weren’t together.”

Viviane closed her eyes and pushed down the small ball of panic growing in her stomach. She groaned and gave Jack a nervous, playful jab. “You breaking up with me, Griffith?”

Jack paused just long enough for the ball of panic to bounce back up into Viviane’s throat. “No,” he finally answered. “That’s something I could never do.”

He stared into the dark shadows around them. “He thinks I’m useless,” he murmured.

Viviane pulled him to her. “Shush,” she said. With a sigh of defeat, Jack let his head drop against the lace exposed by her open shirt. His breath grew deep and heavy while Viviane tried to draw comfort from the rhythmic beat of his heart against her pelvic bone.





JACK AND VIVIANE sat parked on the dirt road at the bottom of the hill on Pinnacle Lane in John Griffith’s 1932 Ford Coupe. It was September and Viviane had just turned seventeen, making her one year and two months younger than Jack.

Jack tapped his foot in rhythm to a song playing in his head. The cuff of his pants had inched up his leg, exposing his sock and a section of his calf. His socks were navy blue; the hairs on his leg were unusually pale and silky. Viviane couldn’t see them, but she knew what they looked like. The hairs on her own legs stuck out like sharp pins. She didn’t know whether to be self-conscious about this or not — it wasn’t her fault there was a shortage of razor blades — so she pulled her feet away from the humming floor and tucked her legs under the skirt of her dress, just in case. The sole of her left shoe grazed Jack’s thigh.

Jack got up early every Saturday to wash and wax his father’s Coupe after those Friday nights when he took Viviane out for a movie at the Admiral Theater or for a five-cent bottle of Coca-Cola at the drugstore. Jack’s father watched for his son not on Friday nights but on Saturday mornings, to be sure the car was thoroughly taken care of. Jack never missed a washing. Neither knew what would happen if he did.

Just like everyone else in the world, Jack and Viviane were both thinking about the war, but each for different reasons. Unbeknownst to Viviane, Jack had been eagerly counting down the days until he turned eighteen. As soon as he did, he went to enlist but was rejected due to his flat feet and poor eyesight.

When Jack told his father that he’d failed the physical exam for military combat, Jack knew John Griffith would let him know exactly what he thought. And he was right.

John had laughed — a hollow and empty bark — and jeered at Jack. “You never cease to amaze me, Jack. Just when I think you couldn’t disappoint me more, you always seem to find a way.”

“It’s not my fault,” Jack said.

“What about the Lavender whore? You’re still screwin’ around with the witch’s daughter, aren’t ya?” John released the laugh again. “Probably cast some spell on you — wouldn’t be hard, weak-minded son of a bitch that you are.”

“Dad —” Jack started.

John dismissed him with a wave of his meaty hand. “Whatever you got to say ain’t worth hearing.”

“Do ya know what kind of fellas go to college these days?” Jack asked Viviane suddenly, hitting the Coupe’s steering wheel with his open palm. “The quacks. The ones with deformities or syphilis. No girl would be caught dead with an F-er.”

Jack was right. Most girls wouldn’t be caught with a boy deemed unfit for combat. Lucky for Jack, though, Viviane wasn’t most girls. The idea of Jack fighting in the war had always terrified her — she’d barely slept the week before his birthday. She’d never tell him, but she thanked God every morning for blessing Jack with lovely flat feet. Instead of going to war, the next morning Jack would be leaving to attend Whitman College in Walla Walla. Even if it was two hundred seventy miles away, at least it wasn’t across a whole ocean.

Viviane grabbed Jack’s hand and pressed it to her lips. “You looking to meet some girls in between your studies, college man? Because if that’s the case, you won’t find me waiting here for you to come back.”