“Why?” he asked gently, touching her cheek with his hand. He was growing into a tall, handsome young man, and sometimes she thought he looked a little like her father and brother. And she loved to tease him about his freckles. “Why are you afraid of romance, Marie-Ange?” They were speaking English, because hers was still far superior to his French, although she had taught him well, and he even knew all the important slang expressions, which he knew was going to impress his French teacher in high school. They were both starting high school, at the same school they'd been, in September.
“I don't want anything to change between us,” she said sensibly. “If you fall in love with me, one day we will be tired of each other, and then we will lose everything. If we stay only friends, we can never lose each other.” It was not entirely unreasonable, and she remained firm about it, although no one who knew them would have believed that. Everyone had always believed that they were boyfriend and girlfriend since their childhood, even Aunt Carole, who continued to make disparaging remarks about him, which always made Marie-Ange angry, although she said nothing to her.
Their relationship continued to flourish all the way through high school. She watched him play on the basketball team, he came to see her in the junior play, and they went to their senior prom together. With the exception of a few random dates, he had never had a girlfriend, and Marie-Ange continued to say she had no interest whatsoever in romance, with Billy or any other boy, all she wanted was to finish school, and go back to France one day. And her great-aunt wouldn't have let her go out with boys anyway. She had strong opinions about it, and was prepared to enforce them. She had continued to threaten Marie-Ange with the state orphanage for all the years she'd been there. But on prom night, Aunt Carole finally agreed to let Marie-Ange go to the dance with Billy.
He came to the farm the night of the senior prom, in his father's truck, to pick her up. And Aunt Carole had let her buy an ice blue satin dress that was almost the same color as her eyes, and made her blond hair seem to sparkle. She looked beautiful, and Billy looked appropriately dazzled.
They had a great time that night, and he and Marie-Ange talked endlessly about the scholarship she had earned, and which she was not able to use, for college. The university was fifty miles away, in Ames, and Aunt Carole had made a point of saying she would do nothing to help her, she would not lend her a truck or a car, and said she was needed on the farm. She offered her neither money nor transportation for college, and Billy was outraged.
“You have to go, Marie-Ange! You can't just work for her like a slave for the rest of your life.” Her dream had been to go back to France at eighteen, but it was obvious that when she turned eighteen that summer, she was not going to do that. She had no money of her own, and never had time to work, because Carole always needed her to do something, and Marie-Ange felt obligated to her. She had lived with her for seven years, and to Marie-Ange, they had seemed endless. But college was now an unattainable dream for her, the scholarship covered tuition, but not books, or dormitory, or food, and even if she got a job, she couldn't make enough to cover her expenses while she went to school. The only way she could go was if she stayed on the farm with her aunt, and commuted. But Aunt Carole had seen to it that that couldn't happen. “All you need is a car for chrissake,” Billy raged on the drive home. They had talked about it all evening.
“Well, I don't have one. I'm going to turn the scholarship down next week,” Marie-Ange said matter-of-factly. She knew that she had to get a job eventually, locally, so she could make enough money to go to France, but she had no idea what she'd do when she got there, probably just visit and come back. She had no way of staying in France either, nowhere to live, no one to live with, no way of making a living. She had no skills whatsoever, and no training. All she had ever learned was how to do chores on the farm, not unlike Billy, who was going to be taking agricultural extension classes. He had dreams of helping his father on their farm, and even modernizing it, despite his father's resistance. He wanted to be a modern-day farmer, and he thought Marie-Ange deserved a real education. They both did. It made him hate Marie-Ange's great-aunt all the more for not letting her go to college. Even his father understood the importance of taking classes, although he couldn't go to school full time. His father needed him too much on the farm to allow him to do that. He urged Marie-Ange to work on her great-aunt some more, and not turn the scholarship down until later in the summer. And as they drove home that night, they were in good spirits. They were both excited about graduating from high school.
“Do you realize we've been friends for nearly seven years?” Marie-Ange said proudly. Her parents had died seven years ago that summer, and in some ways, it still seemed like minutes, in others aeons. But she still dreamed of them and Robert at night, and she could still see Mar-mouton in her mind's eye as though she had just been there. ‘You're the only family I have,” Marie-Ange said to Billy, and he smiled. They both entirely disregarded her Aunt Carole, although Marie-Ange always said that she felt indebted to her, for reasons that escaped Billy. Marie-Ange had lived with her, but Carole had used her mercilessly for the past seven years, as maid, nurse, and farmhand. There was nothing Marie-Ange didn't do for her. For the past two years, her great-aunt's health had been failing. Marie-Ange had to do even more to assist her.
“You know, we could be family permanently,” Billy said cautiously on the drive home from the prom, and glanced at her with a gentle smile, but Marie-Ange was frowning. She never liked it when he talked that way, and doggedly continued to think of them as brother and sister. “We could get married,” he said bravely.
“That's stupid, Billy, and you know it,” she said bluntly. She never encouraged him in that direction, for his own sake, as well as her own. “Where would we live if we got married? Neither of us has a job, or any money,” she said matter-of-factly.
“We could live with my parents,” he said softly, wishing he could sway her. He had just turned nineteen, and she was turning eighteen shortly, old enough to be married, if she wanted, without her aunt's permission.
“Or we could live with Aunt Carole. I'm sure she'd love that. You could work for her on the farm, as I do,” Marie-Ange said, and laughed then. “No, we can't get married,” she said practically. She didn't want to. “And I'm going to get a job, so I can go back to France next year.” The dream never died for her, and he still wished he could go with her. In Iowa, working on his father's farm, his French was virtually useless, but he was happy she had taught him.
“I still want you to go to college in the fall. Let's see what happens,” he said with a look of determination.
“Oh yes, an angel will fall on me from Heaven,” she laughed at him with good humor, as she had adjusted to not going, “and he will throw money at my feet, so I can go to the university, and Aunt Carole will pack my bags, and blow kisses at me when I leave. Right, Billy?” She had been resigned to her fate since she'd come here.
“Maybe,” he said, looking thoughtful. And the next day he began work on a special project. It took him all summer to do, and his brother helped him. His brother Jack worked in a garage in town in his spare time, and helped Billy find just what he needed. It was the first of August when he finally brought it to Marie-Ange, as he came chugging down the driveway in an old Chevy. It sounded terrible, but it drove well, and he had even painted it himself. It was bright red, and the interior was black leather.
He drove up in front of the house, and looked cautiously at Carole when he got out, it was only the third time in seven years that he had been there, and he had never forgotten the reception he'd gotten the first time.
“Wow! Where did you get the fancy car?” Marie-Ange asked with a broad grin, wiping her hands on a towel as she came out of the kitchen. “Whose is it?”
“I put it together myself. I started right after graduation. Want to drive it?”
She had learned to drive tractors and farm vehicles years before, and often drove her aunt's pickup truck to town to do
errands for her or chauffeur her, and she slipped behind the wheel with a broad grin. It was a fun-looking car, although it was old, and Billy had put it together with spit and baling wire, as he said proudly. She drove off the farm, and cruised down the highway for a while, with Billy next to her, and then she reluctantly turned back. She had to cook her aunt's dinner.
“What are you going to do with it? Drive it to church on Sundays?” she asked, smiling at him. She didn't know it, but despite her coloring, she had begun to look just like her mother.
“Nope. I've got better uses for it than that,” he said mysteriously, proud of himself, and filled with the love for her she would never allow him, except as her adopted brother.
“Like what?” she asked, curious and amused, as they pulled into her driveway.
“It's a school bus.”
“A school bus? What does that mean?”
“It means you get your scholarship. All you need now is money for books. You can drive to school in it every day, Marie-Ange.” He had done it entirely for her, and tears filled her eyes as she looked at him in amazement, and he longed to kiss her, but knew she would never let him.
“You're going to lend it to me?” she asked, lapsing into French. She couldn't believe it, but he shook his head in answer.
“I'm not lending you anything, Marie-Ange. It's a present. It's all yours. Your school bus.”
“Oh, my God! You can't do that!” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely. “Are you serious?” she asked, as she pulled away to look at him. It was the most extraordinary thing anyone had ever done for her, and she hardly knew what to say to him. He had made her dreams come true, and was literally giving her the gift of college, by giving her a way to get there.
“I can do it, and I did. It's all yours, baby.” He was grinning from ear to ear, and she wiped the tears from her cheeks as she watched him. “Now how about giving me a ride home before your aunt comes out with her shotgun again and shoots me?” They both laughed at the ugly memory, and she went inside to tell her aunt she'd be back in a few minutes. She didn't explain about the car, she was going to do that later.
Billy drove on the way back to his farm, and Marie-Ange sat close to him, exclaiming over how wonderful the car was, how incredible the gift, and how she shouldn't accept it.
“You can't be uneducated forever. You have to get an education so you can get out of here one day.” He knew he never would, he had to help his family keep their farm, and it was always a struggle for them. But he knew his greatest gift to Marie-Ange was her freedom from Aunt Carole.
“I can't believe you'd do this for me,” Marie-Ange said solemnly. She had enormous respect for him, as a person. And she had never been as grateful for anything in her life as she was to him at that moment. And he was happy to see her so ecstatic. She was as excited as he had hoped she would be. He loved everything about her.
She dropped him off and hurried home, and when she told Aunt Carole about what he'd done, at dinner, she forbade her to accept it. “It's wrong for you to accept a gift like that from him, even if you're planning to marry him,” her aunt said sternly.
“Which I'm not, we're just friends,” Marie-Ange said calmly.
“Then you can't keep it,” Aunt Carole said with a face like wrinkled granite.
But for the first time in seven years of living with her, Marie-Ange was determined to defy her. She would not give up college on the whim of this mean old woman. For seven years she had deprived Marie-Ange in everyway she could, of emotion, and food, and love, and money. Theirs had been a life of deprivation in every sense of the word. And now she wanted to rob her of an education, and Marie-Ange would not let her do it.
“I'll borrow it from him then. But I'm going to use it for school,” she said firmly.
“What do you need school for? What do you think you're going to be? A doctor?” Her tone was derisive.
“I don't know what I'm going to be,” she said quietly. But she knew that it would be more than Aunt Carole. She wanted to be like her mother, although she hadn't gone to university, she had married Marie-Ange's father. But Marie-Ange wanted more than a life on this bleak farm in Iowa, with nothing to enjoy, nothing to celebrate, and nothing to live for. And she knew that one day, when she could escape at last, she would go somewhere, and preferably back to France, at least to visit. But that dream was still on the distant horizon for her. First she had to get an education so she could escape, just as Billy had suggested to her.
“You'll look like a damn fool running around in that old jalopy, particularly if people know who gave it to you.”
“I don't care,” she said defiantly for once, “I'm proud of it.”
“Then why don't you marry him?” Carole pressed her as she had before, more out of curiosity than real interest. She had never understood the bond between them, and didn't care to.
“Because he is my brother. And I don't want to be married. I want to go home one day,” she said softly.
“This is all the home you have now,” Carole said pointedly, looking Marie-Ange in the eye, and her niece only looked at her, and said nothing. Carole Collins had given her a place to live, a roof over her head, an address, and an endless list of chores to do, but she had never given her kindness, compassion, love, or a sense of family. She had barely celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving with her. And for all the years Marie-Ange had been there, she had treated her like a servant. Billy and his family had been nicer to her by far than Carole had ever been. And now Billy had given her the one thing she needed to get out of there eventually, and nothing in this world would have made her give that up, and surely not her Aunt Carole.
Marie-Ange cleared away the dishes without saying another word to her, and when her great-aunt went to her room, Marie-Ange picked up the phone and called Billy.
“I just want you to know how much I love you, and how much you mean to me,” she said in French, with a voice filled with emotion, as he wished she meant it in a different sense, but he knew she didn't. He had accepted it for a long time, and he knew that she loved him. “You are the most wonderful person I know.”
“No, you are,” he said gallantly, but meant it. “I'm glad you like it, Marie-Ange. I just want you to get out of here, one day. You deserve it.”
“Maybe we'll go together,” she said hopefully, but neither of them believed it. They both knew that Billy was destined to stay, but she wasn't. She still had a long way to go to get out, but thanks to him, she was beginning to believe now that maybe one day she'd make it.
Chapter 5
Marie-Ange started college the week after Labor Day, and she left the farm at six o'clock, driving the Chevy that Billy had rebuilt for her. Aunt Carole made no comment at all the night before, but as usual, Billy called and wished her good luck. She promised to stop on the way home, if she had time, to tell him all about it. But as it turned out, she left school so late, after buying her books, with money she had borrowed from Tom, that she had to rush home to cook dinner for Aunt Carole.
But she managed to stop by to see Billy on her way to class the next morning. She didn't have to be at school till ten o'clock, and she dropped by around seven-thirty, after finishing her chores. And she spent time with him in the Parkers' big, friendly kitchen. All their appliances were old, and the Formica counters were chipped. The linoleum floor was stained beyond repair, but his mother kept it immaculately clean, and there was always a warm, cozy atmosphere at their house. Marie-Ange felt at home there, as she had in the kitchen at Marmouton, and unlike her great-aunt, Billy's parents were crazy about her. And Billy's mother believed, because one of her daughters had told her so, that she and Billy would get married someday. But even if they never did, they always treated her like one of their daughters.
“So how was school yesterday?” Billy asked, as he walked into the kitchen with her, in his overalls, and poured them both a cup of coffee.
“It was terrific,” she beamed at him, “I love it. I wish you were
there with me.” The classes he took were at Fort Dodge, and most of the work he did was on his own, and by correspondence.
“So do I,” he smiled back at her. He missed their school days, when he could see her every day, and have long serious talks in French at lunchtime. It was all different now. He had to work on the farm, and he knew that she would have a new life now, new friends, new ideas, professors, and students who had far different goals than he had. He knew he would be on the farm forever. It made him a little sad when he thought about it, but he was happy for her. And after the hard life she'd led on her great-aunt's farm for the past seven years, he knew better than anyone how much it meant to her.
And finally, an hour after she arrived, she got up and had to leave for school, but she promised to come by the following morning.
They saw a lot of each other during her college days, far more than either of them had expected. The commute ate up her time, and she eventually got a job in town as a waitress in a local diner on the weekends, which helped her with expenses, and allowed her to repay the book money she'd borrowed from the foreman. Her Aunt Carole had always refused to give her any money, and told her that if she wanted it badly enough, she'd work for it. But in spite of that, and the chores she still had to do on the farm, she managed to stop and see Billy daily. He came to the diner for a meal occasionally, and now and then they even went to a movie.
During her sophomore year, Billy had a girlfriend, but he always made it clear to Marie-Ange that she was far more important to him than any other girl and always would be. Their childhood friendship had blossomed into a bond like no other, and she even liked his girlfriend, but by Christmas that year, Billy had tired of her. She didn't have the spark or fire of Marie-Ange, the energy, the brains, the style, and bored him in comparison. Marie-Ange had spoiled him. He turned twenty-one as Marie-Ange started her junior year, and it was a hard year for her. Aunt Carole was sick much of the time, she seemed to be getting old and frail and slowly failing. She was seventy-nine years old by then, and in many ways, she seemed as tough as ever, but it was more bravado than real these days, and from time to time Marie-Ange felt sorry for her, although Billy said he didn't. He had always hated the way she treated Marie-Ange, her hard heart, and mean spirit. Marie-Ange knew by then that her father had not been wrong in his assessment of her. But she was used to her, and grateful to her for taking her in, and she did her best to help her while she was sick. She would prepare food for her late at night, and leave it in the morning, so she would have something to eat all day, and she was far more generous with her portions than Carole had been with her throughout her childhood.
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