“And so I want them never to see each other again,” Irma said.
They were all looking at Wooten now. Even Ardelia. It was his move. He was the father of the boy who’d been caught. It was up to him and no one else to say that this thing would never be allowed to happen again. He hesitated, balking at the idea of doing what this woman asked of him. But that was just foolish pride. He knew there was only one thing to say.
“All right.”
“Earl …” Ardelia said.
He turned to his wife. He could see that she didn’t want to agree to anything. Not yet. Not here. Not with these people.
“I mean, don’t you think we should talk to Joel first?”
“What, and ask how it was for him?” Irma asked.
“Irma,” Ardelia said, drawing back, her mouth falling open.
Irma slapped her hand on the arm of the chair.
“Don’t you look at me like that, Ardelia Wooten,” she hissed. “Your son comes in here and makes this … ah, what’s the word?”
She shook her hand. Her brow creased. She seemed to lose her train of thought for a moment.
“Miscegenation?” Ardelia asked finally.
Irma looked up, clearly not knowing what the word meant. Her eyes narrowed hatefully.
“Well, I don’t know what other word you were going to use,” Ardelia continued. “But whatever was going on last night, Joel wasn’t doing it alone.”
Wooten gently put his hand on his wife’s thigh. She shook it off.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Irma shot back.
“It means we have a problem, Irma. And we’re not going to solve it if one of us starts blaming the other’s child.”
“You think the boy is not responsible?”
“I think he shares responsibility, of course.”
“Shares? He comes in here with his big bright smile and you think it’s my daughter who’s responsible?”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Big bright smile,” Ardelia said, repeating each word slowly. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
Here we go, Wooten thought.
“Yes, I think I do,” Ardelia said.
“Ladies,” Wooten said.
They both looked at him. Ready to pounce.
“I think we’re getting off on a bit of a tangent here.”
“I think we’re heading dead for center,” Ardelia said.
“My point is that there’s no reason to argue about something that’s already been decided.”
“Has it?” Ardelia asked. “Been decided?”
“Well, yes.” Wooten noticed his shirt again. That African woman next to it. “I mean, clearly things have gone too far.”
“Thank you,” Irma said curtly.
Wooten shot her a glance. Don’t thank me, you bigoted bitch, he thought. Don’t you dare thank me.
“I think what we have here are a couple of good kids who are in over their heads,” he said. “That’s the way I’d like to approach this. It would be the most productive route. John? Am I right?”
Everyone looked at Truax. Wooten realized he hadn’t said a word since ushering them into the room. He also had the strange feeling that the man hadn’t taken his eyes off him once.
He nodded slowly.
“Okay, then. It’s decided. Joel and Susan are not going to see each other for a while.”
“Ever,” Irma said.
“Well, ever’s a long time. Especially when they’ll both be eighteen soon.”
Irma looked disgusted by the fact.
“Irma?”
“Of course I agree,” she said.
“Fine, then. We’ll speak to Joel and I imagine you’ll have words with your … with Susan.”
“Words,” Irma muttered.
That’s it, then, Wooten thought. Now we can go. Thank God. But before he could stand Truax finally spoke.
“How do we monitor this?” he asked.
“Monitor?”
“Shouldn’t there be some sort of procedure for monitoring the situation?”
Wooten looked at him for a moment, then glanced at Ardelia for help.
“Well,” Ardelia said, using her teacher’s voice. “What we’ll do is sit Joel down and have a talk with him. Explain the situation. And then he’ll do as he’s told.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Truax persisted.
“Well, I really don’t think that’s a problem …”
“He’ll obey,” Wooten said.
Truax looked at him. Waiting for the rest of the sentence.
“You have my word of honor.”
Truax nodded. Once. That was what he needed.
“And how do you plan to, uh, monitor your daughter?” Ardelia asked.
“I’ve locked her in her room,” Truax said evenly.
“What, forever?”
“If that’s necessary.”
His words cast a momentary hush over the room. Go, Wooten thought. Leave this place and never come back.
“Then it’s decided,” Wooten said, standing. “Ardelia?”
She stood as well.
“Don’t forget the shirt,” Irma said.
Wooten had planned on leaving the damned thing there. But now he had to pick it up.
“If there’s anything further you want to talk about,” Ardelia said calmly, “please give us a call any time.”
“What, do you mean if she’s pregnant?” Irma asked. “Don’t worry. He was wearing a rubber. I saw it.”
“Woman …”
Wooten grabbed his wife’s arm.
“Come on, Ardelia. Let’s go.”
But before they could move there were footsteps on the stairs. For a moment Wooten thought it might be Susan, wandering down to beg for mercy or curse them all. He wasn’t sure he could handle that. He felt bad enough deciding the fate of two kids who were clearly in love without having to face one of them. But it wasn’t Susan. It was her sister, a lumpy, slack-jawed girl who’d inherited her father’s grim looks. She was holding a stuffed animal in her hand. A unicorn, its horn spiraled purple and yellow. She held it aloft in disgust. Something was clearly wrong with it.
“Mom …”
12
She watched from Darryl’s window as the Le Sabre sped away, running right through the stop sign at the end of the street. Any hope that the early-morning summit had reached a peaceful resolution vanished as quickly as the car. She’d heard the muted hateful voices and seen the Wootens’ faces as they left. It was official now. They’d been split up.
Susan looked helplessly around at Darryl’s room, the paraphernalia of goodness filling every inch of it. She’d escaped her own locked room moments earlier, after her sister left the door unlocked when she’d come in to ask what had happened to her unicorn. There was some sort of crusty patch on its stomach. Susan said she didn’t know and then, thinking fast, asked Darryl if she would take a letter to Joel for her.
“Don’t you think it’s time you stopped sinning?” Darryl asked in response.
No, Susan almost said. But didn’t. She had enough enemies already. At least her sister had left the door open. Susan’s first thought was to bolt down the steps and out the garage, cutting across lawns and bike paths to Mystic Hills. If she ran like crazy she could get to Joel’s house before his folks. And then they could go, like they’d been talking about. Run away down to April’s for a few days and then just vanish, leaving behind parents and locked doors and everything else in this city that seemed destined to keep them apart.
But she froze before she reached the top of the steps. There were voices down in the living room. Her parents. The Wootens. Locked in her room with Cat Stevens on loud she hadn’t heard them arrive. She’d have to pass right by them. Her father would stop her. Nobody could get away from him. Everybody knew that. She’d once met a scary man at Fort Meade who’d served with him over in that awful place, a dead-eyed soldier who’d come to visit un
announced one afternoon soon after her dad came home. He’d spent the whole time staring at the floor, a cruel smile on his face, saying things Susan didn’t want to hear. How her father never slept and how he hunted people down. How the enemy knew his name and had a bounty on him. Her dad had finally taken the man away to a local bar, coming home drunk for the only time Susan could ever remember. He didn’t talk to anybody for a few days after that.
So running away was impossible. Instead, she went to Darryl’s room to watch the Wootens go. The best thing for now was bide her time. Be smart, for once. Her chance would come. It had to. She could just imagine how it had gone between her mother and Ardelia. Susan had always tried to keep them apart. And it wasn’t just Irma’s hatred of blacks that was the problem. There was also Ardelia’s feeling that Susan wasn’t good enough for Joel. She tried to hide it behind polite smiles and kind words, but Susan could see in her green eyes that she thought her son could do better. Well, they should enjoy their little breakup while they could, because it wasn’t going to last for long.
There were footsteps on the stairs. Susan hurried back to her own room, silently shutting the door behind her. She climbed into bed, her back still stinging where her mother had hit her. She still couldn’t believe Irma had done that. She’d regret it. Ten months from now when Susan called from California or wherever and she was begging her to come home, she’d regret it for sure.
The doorknob rattled. She grabbed a tub of skin cream from her nightstand, ready to bean her mother if she dared step into her room. But it was her father who appeared in the doorway.
“I thought this was supposed to be locked,” he said, nodding toward the handle.
“Darryl left it open. She was in here asking about some stuffed animal.”
“Do you know anything about that?”
“I don’t touch Darryl’s stuff. It’s too clean.”
He looked at the floor.
“Don’t say that,” he said quietly.
“Why not? Isn’t that what this is about? Susan the slut.”
“We don’t think that.”
“Irmagard does.”
Her father sighed.
“Susan, I came up here to tell you that Joel’s parents were just here and we’ve decided that you two kids shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
Even though she knew this was what he would say, the words still felt like a death sentence being pronounced on her. Tears welled in her eyes; sobs began to explode in her chest.
“No, Daddy, please.”
He looked at her. Anybody else would have thought there was no expression on his face, though Susan could tell that he was upset as well.
“I’m sorry. After last night, it’s the only way. You two are in over your heads.”
“You can’t do this!” she shouted.
Her father didn’t say anything. He clearly hated this as much as she did. For a moment she thought she might be about to win a last-minute reprieve. But then Irma shouldered her way into the room. Her big blue eyes were watery as well, her voice a near-screech.
“We can do this! You are still under this roof!”
“Fuck you!” Susan screamed.
“Susan …” her father said.
“Yes, now the sewage starts coming up from the mouth.”
Susan stared as hatefully as she could at her mother, who was only too happy to return her gaze. So after a moment she spun back into the bed, burying her face in the pillows. Where there wasn’t even Joel’s smell anymore—the last thing her mother had done before locking her in her room last night was change her sheets, ripping them from the bed and triumphantly carrying them down to the laundry room, like the looted uniform of a slain foe.
Her parents left. She wanted to cry for a long time, but the tears soon evaporated, leaving her sobs raspy and pointless. She looked up. Her dad had left the door open, but that was only because it was Sunday and he would be in all day. She went to the bathroom and took a long shower, draining the house of every last drop of hot water. She wiped a circle of steam from the mirror and stared at herself. Her face was puffy, her eyes shot through with red. She examined her back, where her mother’s handprints were raised like something done in kindergarten. Her wet hair hung in a limp cord above her spine. There were some shears in the medicine chest and for a moment she thought about just cutting it all off. Shaving it right down to the skull like her mother’s people did to those poor Jews. She could leave the pile on Irma’s pillow. But that would be stupid. Because she would be with Joel soon. And he liked her hair.
She walked naked and dripping back to her room, hoping somebody would see her. If they wanted to be shocked, she’d give it to them. But her parents were in the kitchen and her sister at church. She looked at her closet, where the rail and dresses still lay on the floor. She decided not to wear any clothes today. She put on Blue and crawled back into bed, holding her white tiger to her chest. Strategies of escape flashed inconclusively through her mind. Setting a small fire and using the ensuing panic as a smoke screen. Feigning illness and then slipping out of the emergency room. Lowering herself out the window like some fairy tale princess. But every idea ran up against the image of her father, watching over her. And then she remembered something even more depressing, an unnoticed statement among the hundreds of screamed words the night before. Something about her father’s job going away. Which meant he would be here all the time now. Watching. Guarding.
Fucking Teddy. He was supposed to have been looking out for them. He’d probably got too stoned. Or maybe just left. She wouldn’t put that past him. When he’d come back last night after it was all over she thought maybe he’d come on a mission from Joel. But when she saw that shit-eating grin she realized he was going to be no help at all. Which meant she was on her own. She had to figure a way out of this. She had to get to Joel. He’d know what to do. Sensing that something like this was about to happen, he’d recently begun saying how they would run away the moment their folks tried anything. Start the life they’d planned a bit early. There were other colleges he could go to. And she could always get work. While Irma would freak out on a permanent basis, Joel was confident that his parents would come around once they realized that he and Susan were going to be together whether they liked it or not. They’d give them their blessing in the end. Pay for college. Help with rent. They had to. Earl and Ardelia were decent people.
All she had to do was find a way out of here.
Her mind drifted back to last night. It had been so awful. Especially because just seconds before her mom arrived everything had been so perfect. They’d already balled before Teddy arrived and so there was no urgency the second time around. Joel was so calm, so steady. It was Susan who was going crazy. She didn’t come very much—they hadn’t quite got the knack of that. When it did happen it was like a sudden storm. And last night’s had been a hurricane. Which was why she hadn’t known her folks were in the house. She was coming like mad when the door opened. That was the worst thing—the aftershocks still running through her body even as her dad went after Joel, even as her mom slapped her around. The two feelings mixed together, good and evil, all happening at once. She wondered if coming would ever feel the same again. Or if there would always be that specter of pain attached to it.
The door opened. Her mother frowned at her nakedness, then crossed the room and turned down the volume.
“You should wear some clothes.”
“You should choke on your own vomit.”
Irma pretended to ignore the remark.
“Would you like to eat something? You must be hungry.”
In response, Susan turned toward the wall, showing her mother those handprinted welts and her bare ass and, most important, the last part of her daughter she’d see once Susan figured a way out of here—her back.
13
They sat politely in their folding chairs. There were over four hundred of them, so many that they threatened to spill out the fire exits. Most were young and white; all we
re well dressed and orderly. They watched the stage with expectant eyes. Swope stared back at them, greeting as many as he could with a tight smile and friendly nod. These were his people. The Newton Homeowners Association. Purchasers of townhouses and single-fams and condos. Citizens, with mortgages and second cars, water bills and children with braces. If they had long hair it was neatly combed; if they wore jeans they were freshly washed. When they finished their coffee they disposed of the Styrofoam cups in an orderly manner.
Membership in this particular club was simple. All a person had to do was buy a home in Newton, whereupon he was saddled with a first lien in his deed obligating him to pay an annual assessment to the NHA of 35 cents per $100 value of property, money which would be used to fund the city’s public works and recreation programs. In return, the member could face the NHA’s executive committee in a monthly general meeting to make recommendations, air grievances and petition for changes. Although members had no actual power, the committee weighed their requests with the utmost gravity. It consisted of five directors, currently sitting at a long table on the stage of Newton High’s gymnasium, surrounded by unstruck decorations from a year-end production of The Petrified Forest. As executive director, Swope sat at the table’s center. To his right was Wooten, the committee’s other permanent member. To his right was Richard Holmes, serving a six-month term, as was Chad Sherman, the young EarthWorks PR man seated to Swope’s left. Beyond Sherman sat the board’s one at-large member, a shoeless Juniper Bend housewife named Ellen Felice, whose loopy eco-agenda was routinely, if politely, voted down by the other four.
The NHA was Vine’s way of gradually introducing democracy into the city. Although responsive to public opinion, it remained an agent of corporate control. If push came to shove, the in-built EarthWorks majority could easily quell any citizen uprising. Come summer’s end, however, all five directors would be elected by the homeowners. Although the company-appointed city manager would still have the final say in fiscal matters, corporate power would no longer be absolute. Three years on, in the year of the nation’s bicentennial, the manager post would be abolished in favor of an elected mayor. Phase IV would have been completed. Newton would no longer be a profit point for EarthWorks. At that moment, all political links with the company would be severed. The city would be on its own.
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