Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  Next to her, Billy carefully opened a can of beer and handed it to her. He left his own unopened. Billy didn’t drink, and Hélène thought she knew why—because of his father.

  She stole a glance at him, and her heart contracted. She could just see how hard he’d tried. The crew cut had gone, some years back. Now Billy wore his dark hair combed straight back; it was shiny with grease. He had his good suit on; the one he wore to weddings and funerals. It didn’t fit too well, and there were threadbare patches on the elbows. He was wearing a shirt and a tie, too, and you could see they made him uncomfortable, because every so often he’d reach up a finger and slip it under the collar, as if it were choking him. He’d cut himself shaving, and there was a little nick just below where he was trying to grow his sideburns. He smelled too strongly of aftershave, and he was sitting bolt upright, both hands on his knees. He hadn’t said one word since they’d gotten into the car.

  Hélène felt embarrassed, and hated herself for it. She tried not to look at Dale Garrett up front. He was loaded, or so Priscilla-Anne said. His daddy owned a fertilizer plant over Montgomery way. He had a college degree, a Buick, and a reputation as long as your arm. Priscilla-Anne loved him. He’s the one, Hélène, she’d say. This time I just know. He’s the one. Dale Garrett was wearing a sport jacket and a button-down Brooks Brothers shirt. No grease on his hair; it flopped over his forehead when he laughed—which he did often. A red and gold fraternity ring gleamed on his finger. Hélène looked away: she didn’t even like Dale Garrett that much. He was a snob, she thought, and a boaster; clean-cut good looks, sure enough, but not nearly as good-looking as Billy, with his kingfisher-blue eyes. Not nearly as nice, either. So how come, when she looked at him and then looked at Billy, she felt pity, and then shame?

  “You made a reservation, Tanner?” Dale turned and grinned over his shoulder. He tossed the Budweiser can out the window.

  “No.” Billy’s voice was quiet. “Didn’t need to. It won’t be full.”

  “Hope you’re right, Tanner…” Hélène saw him glance across at Priscilla-Anne, and wink. “I mean, these fancy places, they can be funny about that. Turning up without a reservation, you know?”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “Hope so. Because I worked up quite an appetite today, thinking about tonight and all. In more ways ’n one…” His hand came down over Priscilla-Anne’s and adjusted it slightly. “Yes sir! I fancy myself a good steak, and plenty of fries, salad on the side. A little French wine, maybe. They have French wine in this place of yours, Tanner?”

  “Sure.” Billy’s face looked pale and tight. “I mean, I guess they do.”

  “French wine, I said, Tanner.” Dale laughed. “I mean, this is a celebration, right?” He grinned at Hélène in the rearview mirror. “French name, French wine. Makes sense, don’t you think?”

  Hélène said nothing. Her eyes locked with Dale’s for a second, then slid away. He was trying to rile Billy, she knew that. And her, too, maybe. She made him feel uncomfortable, with her funny name and her funny voice, she could tell that. Dale liked to place people, she thought, and he couldn’t quite place her. It was the nervousness that was making him so rude. Quietly she reached across the backseat and found Billy’s hand. She gave it a hard squeeze.

  The restaurant was on the outskirts of Montgomery someplace.

  “Not downtown?” Dale said as Billy leaned forward and started to give him directions.

  “No. Not downtown. Make a left here…”

  Past the turning to the airport, under a bridge, and onto the main highway into town. They passed a parking lot, a garage, two gas stations, traffic lights. Billy was beginning to look excited, and proud. He gestured with his hand.

  “Over there. There. Make a right now…”

  Dale Garrett spun the wheel. They came to a stop. There was a silence, broken by a stifled giggle from Priscilla.

  “Here?” Dale’s voice sounded disbelieving. “Howard Johnson’s?”

  “That’s it.” Billy was already getting out of the car. He came around to Hélène’s side, opened her door, and carefully helped her out.

  “The restaurant,” he said to her softly, and she could feel the nervousness in his body. “What did he think I meant—the coffee shop?”

  “It’s lovely, Billy,” Hélène said quickly. “Just lovely. Thank you.”

  Priscilla-Anne and Dale were necking, so she and Billy walked on ahead of them, in through the lobby and into the restaurant itself. It was very large, and half empty. A line of white businessmen on stools by the bar; acres of shiny red banquettes. The captain was wearing red too; he was Billy’s age, no more, and his face was spotted with pimples. He looked Billy up and down, and Hélène could see the sneer start way back in his eyes. Then he looked at her, and his eyes widened.

  “We’d like a table,” Billy said firmly. “Over there in the window.”

  The man came as near to giving a shrug as he could, then he turned back to Hélène and gave her a long stare.

  “Sure thing. This way. Ma’am.”

  Hélène felt the color flood up over her face. She followed him to the table and sat down. Two menus were tossed down on the table.

  “We need two more. There’ll be four of us,” Billy said, but the man had already gone.

  Hélène looked up to find Billy staring at her. She wondered if he’d noticed the man’s rudeness, because if he had, he didn’t seem to care. His face looked soft, and gentle, and intent, and the blue eyes blazed like the sky on a summer’s day.

  “You look beautiful,” Billy said simply. “You look—well, I guess you’re just about the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life.”

  “Billy?”

  “So I don’t give a damn, okay?” He gave a quick smile, and the blue eyes crinkled around the corners. “Not about Dale Garrett, or that guy over there, either. Not about anything. Just so long as I can go right on looking at you. That’s all.”

  “Billy, I…” She hesitated, not quite sure what to say, because what he said surprised her and pleased her, and also made her feel a little afraid. Something in her was holding back, and all she knew was that she didn’t want Billy to be hurt, not ever. And especially not by her. “I…you like my dress?”

  It was a white dress, cotton, and it showed off the tan of her skin. When her mother had showed it to her, she’d danced around the room for joy. It was the prettiest dress she’d ever worn.

  “I like your dress.”

  “My mother made it. For my birthday. She got the material cheap, she said, and…”

  “Does she know? Where you are tonight?” Billy’s face had clouded slightly. “I mean, did you tell her you were going out with me?”

  “No, Billy.” She raised her eyes pleadingly to his face.

  “She thinks I’m not good enough to take you out?”

  “No, Billy, of course not. It’s not that. It’s just that she doesn’t like me to go out on dates. Not with anyone. She says I’m still too young, and so I said I was going over to Priscilla-Anne’s…”

  “Too young?” Billy frowned. “You’re almost a woman.” He hesitated. “Seems to me.”

  There was a little silence, and she saw him glance up. On the far side of the restaurant Dale and Priscilla-Anne were just coming in.

  “My daddy got married when he was eighteen.” Billy fiddled with his knife. “My mama wasn’t more’n sixteen, seventeen, when I was born. Still…” He sighed. “Maybe yours sees things differently, being from England and all…You want to look at the menu now?”

  Hélène picked up the card and raised it in front of her face. The prices danced before her eyes, and she felt a little sick. Everything seemed so expensive, and for all he said, she knew Billy didn’t earn that much. Half of what he earned, more maybe, went to his mother. Maybe, if she said she wasn’t very hungry, if she just ordered a salad? But Billy would be disappointed if she did that, she knew. He’d been planning this for weeks, months maybe.

  A
nd her mother—what would her mother say if she knew where she was? Hélène wasn’t sure anymore. She’d lied, to be safe, because if she’d told her the truth, her mother might have lost her temper and refused to let her go. But on the other hand, she might have just accepted it, said nothing at all.

  Hélène didn’t understand her mother these days, she was so unpredictable, so strange. Sometimes she was up, high as a kite, filled with the weird tense excitement that Hélène had come to recognize and to dread. Dread, because it meant it wouldn’t last long. The next day she’d suddenly be down. She’d drag herself around like she hardly had the energy to move anymore. She’d listen and nod while Hélène talked, but her wide violet eyes would have this blank look in them, as if she were locked away in some world of her own, as if she didn’t hear a word that was being said. She took less care of herself now. She was terribly thin, and never seemed to want to eat, and there were gray streaks in her hair, and she didn’t set it in pins, not the way she used to.

  Sometimes Hélène thought she drank. She’d found a vodka bottle once, wrapped up in paper, empty, hidden away in the garbage can, and after that she’d watched her mother carefully. But she never saw her drink, never found another bottle. She slept a lot, too, especially these last weeks; Hélène had noticed it. Sometimes she’d come home from school, and her mother would be in bed. She’d just stayed there, she said. It was simpler; her head ached so. It didn’t matter; Cassie Wyatt had two new assistants. She could cope now. She’d have to.

  And the money. The prices on the menu swam before her eyes. She didn’t want to think about the money or the old tin box. Last time she’d looked it’d been down to forty-three dollars…

  She’d wanted to tell someone, talk to someone, but loyalty held her back. Once, just once, she’d tried. Half-tried. Sometimes I think I’ll never go to England, she had said to Priscilla-Anne. But Priscilla-Anne had just laughed. “Honey, did you ever really believe you would? Quit dreaming. Orangeburg isn’t so bad…” She’d made a face, gestured down Main Street. “Stay here! You could always marry Billy Tanner…”

  Hélène shut her eyes. She wouldn’t think about it, she wouldn’t. It was her birthday! She ought to feel happy. If she got to thinking too much, the cage closed in, and then she felt sick and mean and scared; she felt like an animal in a trap.

  Billy was reading the menu now; one finger was moving down the long lines of print. His lips moved. Priscilla-Anne nudged Dale in the ribs, and it was all Hélène could do not to reach across and grab the menu. Don’t do that, Billy, she wanted to cry. I know you’re worth a hundred of them, but can’t you see they’re laughing at you? Oh, Billy, can’t you? Then the waiter came over, and Billy tried to give him everyone’s order, and got all tangled up and blushed scarlet.

  “I’ll settle for a steak. And fries.”

  The waiter smirked.

  “And how would you like the steak cooked, sir?”

  Billy stared at him blankly.

  “Why, just the way you always cook them, I guess,” he said finally.

  “He means how d’you want it, Billy?” Priscilla-Anne took pity on him. “You know—rare, medium, well-done?”

  “Oh. Well-done…”

  “I’ll have the same,” Hélène said quickly.

  Priscilla-Anne gave her order. Then the waiter turned to Dale. The smirk disappeared.

  “Sir?”

  “Well now…” Dale leaned back on the banquette. He had seated himself next to Hélène; now he stretched his arms along the back of the seat above her shoulders.

  “I’ll have the filet. Rare. Fries. Onions on the side. A large salad. Roquefort dressing. I guess you don’t have a wine list in this place?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then I’ll take a bourbon on the rocks. And a beer. How about you, Tanner?”

  “Nothing for me.”

  “That’ll be it then.” Dale grinned. “These lovely ladies are under age…”

  When the waiter brought the bourbon, ice tinkling, Dale lifted his glass.

  “To Hélène.” He swung around to face her, eyes glittering, mouth moist. “You know, I can’t believe you’re just fifteen years old? You look so grown-up now…” His eyes fell to her breasts, then back up to her face. “Priscilla-Anne, honey,” he drawled, “how come you never told me you had such a cute little friend?”

  He began as he meant to go on, never losing a chance to put Billy down, never missing a chance to flirt with Hélène. Billy hardly spoke; once she realized what was happening, Priscilla-Anne’s face set in hard lines. Whenever Hélène tried to catch her eye, she turned her face away. Hélène sat there while he systematically destroyed the evening. Dale alone seemed to be enjoying himself. He ate with relish. He swilled back several glasses of beer, and the more he drank, and his color rose, the more flagrant he became.

  When Hélène pushed half her steak and most of her french fries aside, uneaten, Dale laughed. His hand circled her shoulders, his fingers briefly caressed her bare arm.

  “That how you keep that figure of yours, Hélène? She’s just so slender! Why, I bet my two hands’d go right around her waist—what do you think, Priscilla-Anne?”

  Priscilla-Anne drained her glass of ice water in one gulp. She was wearing a pink knit top, very tight. Her face was pink, too, and her eyes were round with indignation.

  “And they wouldn’t fit ’round mine?” She glared around the table.

  “That what you’re saying, Dale?”

  Dale laughed. “Course I’m not, honey. I can think of better places to put them when I’m with you, you know that…”

  Priscilla-Anne’s face softened; she gave a nervous laugh.

  Hélène quickly shifted so she was out of Dale’s grasp. Billy, who had stopped eating, picked up his knife and fork again, and went on patiently trying to saw the steak. When the waiter finally took the plates away, no one wanted anything else—except Dale. Dale ordered cheesecake, and another highball, and coffee. When the coffee came, he poured the cream carefully over the back of the spoon, so it floated in a pale circle on the coffee below. He sipped it, then turned to Hélène. He had a thin line of cream along his upper lip.

  “Just the way I like it. Smooth and creamy on top, hot and dark underneath…” He smiled, regarding her with lowered lids, then leaned back expansively on the seat.

  “Well now. That was good. Thank you, Tanner. A real fine meal.” He half-suppressed a belch. “Where d’you work, Tanner, by the way? I don’t think you said—”

  “Over Maybury way. At Haines’s garage.”

  “You don’t say! You know Eddie Haines? Used to be at Selma High? He’s an old boyfriend of Priscilla-Anne’s—you know him?”

  “I’ve come across him.” Billy glanced at Priscilla-Anne. “He’s married now.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Priscilla-Anne tossed her head. “Married Susie Marshall, used to be a grade ahead of us. Married her just in time, I heard…”

  “Strange…” Dale wasn’t listening. “Didn’t know Haines hired white boys. I thought, the wages he pays, he could get only niggers…”

  “You thought wrong then.” Slowly Billy replaced his cup on his saucer.

  “Dale’s starting law school in the fall,” Priscilla-Anne interjected quickly into the ugly silence that followed. Hélène saw her glance nervously at Dale. “He plans to start his own law practice here in Montgomery—don’t you, Dale? And his daddy made a real big contribution to George Wallace’s campaign, and Dale’s been working on his campaign staff. Speech-writing and research and all…”

  “Is that so?” Billy looked at him across the table, and Dale shrugged. He threw Priscilla-Anne a little smile.

  “Certainly is.” He made a deprecating gesture. “Don’t actually write any of the speeches, you understand. Spend a lot of time making coffee as a matter of fact. But it’s a real privilege, you know? An honor. He’s a fine man, Wallace. Smart. Knows we’re going to need all the smart lawyers down here we can get, t
he way things are going in Washington right now. Federal government sticking its finger into every little pie. Goddamn Yankees trying to tell us what we should and shouldn’t do. I tell you—it just makes my blood boil. And that Lyndon Johnson, selling us all down the river the way he did, voting for a civil rights bill. Getting it through the Senate like that. He’d sell his old grandmama for a bucket of shit, and he calls himself a southerner…” He broke off with a smile. “Sorry, ladies. I guess I get carried away. But my daddy says, every time he hears the words civil rights, he goes reachin’ for his gun. And I feel the same way. Niggers voting? Sitting in the same schools with white girls and white boys? That’s commie talk. Jews and commies. But I tell you one thing. It’ll never happen. No way. Not here in Alabama…”

  He came to a stop, then winked across the table at Billy. “Still, mustn’t talk politics, eh, Tanner? Don’t want to bore the little ladies, now, do we? Ain’t met a lady yet didn’t turn her eyes up and start to yawn the minute politics was mentioned…”

  “Will you excuse me?” Hélène stood up quickly. Billy’s face had gone hard and tight; he was staring at Dale across the table. But Dale didn’t seem to notice. He made an elaborate show of rising to his feet to let Hélène pass. Priscilla-Anne rose, too, and Dale laughed.

  “Don’t you keep us waiting too long now…”

  The minute the door of the ladies’ room closed behind them, Priscilla-Anne rounded on her. “Hélène Craig, you two-timin’ cat—what d’you think you’re doing? Call yourself my friend…”

  Her cheeks were flushed; Hélène could see that she was close to tears.

  “Doing? I’m not doing anything. It’s him. It’s Dale. I can’t help the way he behaves. I’m not encouraging him…”

  “Oh, you’re not? Well, it doesn’t look that way to me—not where I’m sitting. Oh, you keep quiet and you don’t say much, I give you that. But you don’t need to. You just look at him with those blue eyes of yours, and it’s the biggest come-on I’ve ever seen. Why, Susie Marshall had nothing on you…”