The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(30)

At any rate, he never came to Chicago, but I went home for spring break the last week of March, 1977. Eddie and I had been anticipating our reunion for nearly three months by speaking on the phone every other evening and cooing like fools in each other’s ears. It’s a wonder I did all right in school. My mind was floating most of the time, but I managed to pull off A’s and B’s. Diving into my classes helped to keep me from obsessing about Eddie every waking minute!

Dad picked me up at the airport, as usual. During the ride home, he asked if I would be seeing Eddie.

“Of course,” I replied.

“Well, for your mother’s sake, I hope you’ll spend some time at home with us.”

“I will! I wouldn’t abandon you guys.”

But of course I did. I was terrible to my parents. I had only a week away from school, and I spent more of my time with Eddie than with them. We didn’t stay in the bomb shelter as much as the last time, though, and instead went out on the town, as it were, at night. Once, he took me to dinner and a movie. We ate at the Red Shack, a nice steak restaurant that Limite was always known for. It was a lovely evening, although Eddie insisted that we move to a different table when a family with children sat near us. A child in a high chair started crying, and Eddie tensed up.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t like babies,” he said.

I think I muttered that I didn’t care for it when they made a scene in public either, but then I remembered how, back when we were kids, Eddie couldn’t take it when baby Michael cried. He must have carried that dread with him into adulthood.

After dinner, we went to see Rocky, which had won the Oscar that very week and was playing in town. I had already seen it, but Eddie hadn’t. We went to a Denny’s afterward for some comfort food and—big mistake—coffee. The two of us ended up in the bomb shelter, staying up all night. However, already when we were at Denny’s, I noticed that Eddie was his less talkative self. He seemed darker and withdrawn.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I had no reason to inquire. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You liked the movie?”

“Oh, it’s not that. I mean, the boxing was cool. Yeah, I liked it. I was just thinking”—he laughed a little—“about my dad, of all people.”

“Why?”

“He loved boxing. He practiced on me and my mom every day.”

His statement jolted me out of my mood at the moment. Eddie noticed my reaction and said, “Sorry. That was a joke.”

“Eddie, geez …”

“Except, what the hell, it’s pretty true. Maybe not every day, but it happened a lot.”

“I’m sorry, Eddie.” I was, but I didn’t want to talk about it back then. That element of Eddie’s life bothered me. There was a dark side to Eddie, and I could sense that it sometimes wanted to reveal itself when he was with me. I believe he purposefully fought to hold it in check. But every once in a while, Eddie would say something truly off the wall, a non sequitur that had to do with God or Satan or his awful father or his sick mother. And his artwork—that was what really gave it away. His work had become even more disturbing and strange, though still oddly beautiful. It seemed he enjoyed playing the role of the “tortured artist.” And I’m afraid that’s what attracted me to him. Indeed, the bad boy thing appealed to me—something rough around the edges that I simply found exciting.

We went to the Oil Derrick a couple of other nights. I remember asking Eddie how come I never saw anyone I knew from high school there. He explained that it was because they had all gotten married and that they had no need to go to a singles bar anymore. At least, that was what usually happened to the kids who stayed in Limite. Only some, like me, had left and gone to college. Eddie said we were the “smart ones.”

“So why don’t you leave, Eddie?” I asked him. “Why do you stay? You could go to a bigger city where you might have better opportunities to sell your artwork.”

He was silent for a while as he thought about how to respond. Then he answered, “As strange as it sounds, Shelby, I’m uncomfortable when I’m out of town. I can’t stand Limite, but I don’t like it when I’m not here, either. There’s something about this place, that street where we live, that house, the bomb shelter … it’s my world. Besides, my mother needs me.”

“Does she?”

“Sure. After all she suffered being married to Charles Newcott? Are you kidding? She became a doormat, and now I have to take care of her.”

Suddenly, I had a bird’s-eye view of us, sitting there in the nightclub, in love and oblivious to the disaster that our relationship would become. “Eddie, I’m never going to come back to Limite to live.”

He wrinkled his brow. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me. If you’re never going to leave Limite, and I don’t want to come back here, are we wasting our time with each other?”

Eddie flinched a little. “Do you think we’re wasting our time?”

“No, I’m just saying, I mean, I wonder—do we have a future together? Do we want a future together?”