Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

  Then he swore and unlocked the catch, slid the window open easily.

  Another knock and a shout. ‘Preach!’

  Frank waved his hands at me. ‘Go, go, come on, you’re young and fit, you can climb out.’

  ‘Yeah … but …’

  ‘No buts, John, you have to go. That man is a private man and we have an appointment so he can’t see anyone else here.’ Then he stopped, eyes locked on mine. ‘I’m not asking.’

  The window wasn’t big and I’d grown an inch or two this past year but Frank’s blazing eyes scared me more than his words. I swung one leg out and almost broke my neck trying to bend it through the tiny square. I squeezed my body out the gap but lost my grip on the window frame. In one sickening moment of terror, flailing like a ragdoll, I fell backwards, landed in a butterfly bush.

  When I looked up, Frank was gone, the light in the room switched off, and the window closed. He hadn’t even waited to see if I was okay. Broken branches dug into my back and sides and I felt the sticky heat of blood on my shoulder. I struggled free, dragging half the bush behind me, but froze when I heard the man’s voice again. Inside the trailer.

  The knowledge that something in the pastor’s office was wrong eclipsed the pain in my back. Was he okay? Did he need my help? He was acting so strange, so different to the person I knew so well.

  I’d just wait, listen in, to make sure that man wasn’t a danger to him. And if he was, I’d be there to call the sheriff or fight him off. I pressed my back against the rough plastic right below the back window. A sudden drop of guilt hit my stomach. Frank said the man was private and there I was eavesdropping. I shouldn’t be here. It could just be some prayer or blessing that didn’t take, it happened all the time. Some crazy old widower wants the pastor to pray his wife back from the dead then threatens with a shotgun when it doesn’t happen, like he’s some miracle worker. Fools. The pastor always soothed those people. Always talked to them calmly and explained God’s magical plan. He had that way about him, that gentle tone that fixed an angry mind.

  You should leave, John, the voice in my head said.

  Just a few more seconds. I had to make sure he was okay. It only took a minute to tune my ears and I could hear every word.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ Frank said.

  ‘Oh come now, this is just a friendly visit, one neighbour to the other,’ the man said. I knew his voice but couldn’t place it. It was deeper than Frank’s, rougher.

  ‘Try picking up the phone.’

  A bang, like a fist hitting a table. ‘I don’t ’preciate your tone, preacher.’

  Silence. I felt my heartbeat in my throat. There was no calm in Frank tonight, no soothing Bible wisdom.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ Frank said again like it would change the man’s mind the more he said it.

  ‘Oh calm down now, friend, we ain’t gettin’ rowdy. We just want to make sure you’re still a man we can trust. I’ve dealt with one dead girl already, I don’t want to deal with any more.’

  A dead girl. The words hit me like a snowball to the face. The floor creaked as one of them moved.

  ‘You need to leave. Now,’ Frank said.

  ‘I been hearing that some kids in town are flappin’ gums about the Ridley girl. My employer ain’t too happy on that, as you can well imagine. No one wants to be killin’ kids, preach, but we got a business to run, comprende?’

  The other man’s deep voice filled with heat and I imagined his eyes blazing devil red.

  Kids flappin’ gums about the Ridley girl. Mora? A blast of heat scorched my cheeks. That was me. To the sheriff in the Backhoe. Oh shit, Johnny boy, what have you started with your idiot questions?

  No one wants to be killin’ kids. Your days are numbered if you carry on down this road, bucko. My heart thudded in my ears and my cheeks burned.

  ‘For the last time,’ Frank said, almost a growl. ‘Get the hell out of my office.’

  ‘I’m bedding down here, preach, till you give me my assurances. The terms of our arrangement ain’t changed. You keep your mouth shut, we keep ours shut and we keep the supply coming.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jacobs said, barely audible.

  That word stuck in my ear. Arrangement. What arrangement could Frank have with a man like this? Some arrangement to get him into Heaven? If that man was as nasty as his voice, it’d take more than greasing a pastor’s palm to get him upstairs.

  Another movement and the man’s voice came closer to the window. ‘Don’t look so scared, preach. We’re not going to incur the wrath of the almighty by hurting one of his chosen people but if we hear any more rumours, any more talk of dear, sweet Mary or a particular car …’ he trailed off and my gut clenched.

  The Dodge. Samuels must have listened to me that day, taken the information and started questioning the town’s nastier residents. Mary Ridley. That was her name. Finally, she had a name.

  ‘I get it. Now get out,’ Frank all but shouted.

  I’d never heard him speak like that, not in all the fire and brimstone sermons, not at kids breaking church windows, not at anyone, about anything. But I guessed this guy wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  My head throbbed and the rough plastic wall grated against my back. A small group of women carrying trays of food, probably on their way to a potluck, strolled down the street, talking, laughing. I shuffled deeper into the shadow and watched them pass.

  The man whistled. ‘Oh that’s a nice bottle of brown lace you got. Wild Turkey soothes my aching chest, kind of you to give it to me.’

  Footsteps shook the trailer and I heard the main door fly open.

  ‘You take care now, father, I’ll see you in church on Sunday. Save me a pew, right down at the front. Nice an’ close, hey?’

  The more I heard of the man’s voice the more I recognised it but I still couldn’t place it. It wasn’t Bung-Eye or Perry Buchanan, wasn’t old man Briggs or Al Westin or Gloria’s father. I’d know their voices in a second. I gritted my teeth, tried to force the memory but nothing came.

  The trailer creaked, like weight had been lifted, and I heard the soft thud of someone stepping onto grass. I didn’t look. I didn’t dare. It was no one I wanted to see and no one I wanted seeing me.

  I listened for the man walking away. Soft steps on grass. Then sharper, boots on the sidewalk. Fading. The sound of the crickets came back, the buzzing midges around the butterfly bushes.

  The world came back into focus. The name, Mora’s real name, vibrated inside my head. Mary Ridley. Mary Ridley. Get to Jenny, tell her everything. Find Rudy and Gloria, tell them too. Maybe it’d calm Jenny to know the girl’s name, know the police are looking. I jumped up, ran out onto the street. My whole body shook. For a second I didn’t know where I was. Too dark, too excited, I felt turned around, I stood in the road and all directions looked the same. A car horn startled me and I stumbled out of the traffic, onto the sidewalk.

  I caught my breath and replayed every word of the conversation until I had it memorised. I had a name, the name of a dead girl from a year ago, and I’d made it happen, in a roundabout way. I also had Gloria’s kiss still burning on my lips.

  Today was a good day. Today was a fucking great day.

  I turned around in the middle of the sidewalk, almost knocked into a man walking his dog. The dog yapped and snarled. The man, I recognised him from the Backhoe, sneered at me, said, watch where you’re going, kid. I mumbled an apology and walked away but I heard the man mutter the word freak. It hung in the air, followed me, but I kept going, ran faster, tried to escape it, but there’s no escaping the rumours in this town. Maybe if I went back to Samuels, told him that I have a good head on my shoulders, I can help, let me help, let me tell you about the car and what Bung-Eye said and what just happened in Frank’s office. Maybe if I helped solve the murder, people would change my nickname to hero.

  I couldn’t go to Samuels without Jenny and Rudy and Gloria. They were in this as much as I was. We had all foun
d her, we had to do this together.

  I started toward home, a bundle of wires in my chest.

  I cut through the fields behind town so fast I was flying, my legs retreated and my arms turned to wings, feathers, and I was up up up away from the Dodge and the gruff man in the trailer and toward Jenny and a better life, free of snide remarks and sideways glances, free of Jenny’s pale fascination with death.

  I crossed Three Points in two leaps, vaulted the fence into our resurrected farm. For the first time since I could remember, our fields bristled with good, fresh corn, green spikes stabbing up through the earth like a bed of nails at the circus. I watched the stalks inch taller by the day and with them grew a future for Jenny and me, a farm I could manage. There was life and vigour under our feet, pulsing around us, fattening the corn ears, making our faded white house a true home.

  I burst through the back door into the kitchen. Momma was out with Eric – getting groceries, so said a note on the counter – but I expected they’d stopped at Gum’s like usual. I ran up to mine and Jenny’s room, through the door so loud she dropped the book she was reading, our second-hand illustrated encyclopaedia, onto the floor.

  ‘What’s wrong? Is it Eric?’ She sprang up out of bed, bare feet on the floorboards.

  ‘He’s fine, fine, it’s …’ I heaved in breath after breath. ‘It’s Mora.’

  ‘What …’

  ‘I … found …’ I stumbled to the bed, sat down to calm myself. ‘I found out her name.’

  Jenny went to say something, then thought again. She sat beside me. ‘Start at the beginning.’

  I raced through Miss Eaves and swimming in Barks. I faltered, didn’t tell her about Gloria, I couldn’t, the words snagged in my throat when I tried. I wanted to keep it mine for a little while longer. I told her about the drink with Frank, every word of the gruff man’s threat and Mary Ridley.

  Jenny fired up.

  ‘We should go searching for her family, how many Ridleys could there be around here? The cops can’t do everything, we have to help.’ Jenny grabbed my shoulders. ‘We can give the family answers. We found her after all. The sheriff can find her parents and where she was before she died and who was with her. They can find out who killed her. We have to tell them.’

  ‘We will but—’

  ‘But what? We have to help. They’ve had a whole year and all they’ve come up with is a name, that’s bullshit. How did that man even find it out? Maybe he knows because he killed her? And why would he be telling the pastor unless the pastor has something to do with it?’

  The words stung, all the more because they were true. I hadn’t considered how Frank could be involved and why the name hadn’t become public knowledge. I assumed Samuels had found out, told the man who had told Frank. But why wouldn’t they tell everyone? Ask the public if they’d seen this girl last year? Ask anyone if they knew her? A fat worm of doubt wriggled in my stomach.

  ‘Let’s get Gloria and Rudy tomorrow and go to Big Lake after school,’ Jenny said.

  Just the mention of Gloria’s name sent a tremor through me and I felt the kiss again.

  I nodded. Kept my eyes away from my sister. My face bloomed red. Jenny shifted on the bed. I felt her stare, pressing into the side of my head.

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  I hated to lie but I wasn’t ready for the truth. I didn’t know yet what the kiss meant. Were me and Gloria going steady? Were we boyfriend–girlfriend? Or had it been a one-off moment of craziness like Frank and his Norma Fontaine?

  ‘Course not. I told you everything,’ But her stare didn’t waver. Think faster, clearer, better.

  ‘I got excited by the news but now … I don’t know,’ I let my voice sound uncertain. ‘Maybe we should leave it to the experts. I guess I’m worried it’ll bring up bad memories, you know? After what happened to Rudy …’ I let the words hang, a note of accusation in my voice to make her feel guilty, steer her away from my secret.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said and her stare fell away.

  Silence, for a second. Then Jenny said, ‘Why is your hair wet?’

  My heart skipped. Think, think, think.

  ‘Miss Eaves,’ I blurted out. ‘She tripped. Spilled ice tea all over me. She let me have a shower.’

  Jenny raised one eyebrow, just like Momma did. Today was the first time I’d outright lied to my sister. All because I went swimming and kissed a girl and couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. I hated myself right then. I’d let something, someone, come between me and my sister and I wanted to scream.

  ‘Your shirt is clean though,’ Jenny said. ‘What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?’

  Thunder filled my ears, raging heart, raging blood. Stop lying, John Royal, lying never got you anywhere.

  ‘She washed it,’ I said. ‘And put it in her dryer.’

  Jenny took the hem of my t-shirt between her fingers, rubbed it. ‘That was nice of her.’

  I smiled, nodded, couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  I picked up the encyclopaedia from the floor and smoothed out the creased pages. ‘It was good, though, the lesson. It helped.’

  That was enough to take Jenny’s interest down a peg. ‘I should have asked. Sorry. What was it like?’

  Easier, whiter lies came out of my mouth. Algebra and vocabulary, I said, boring really.

  We settled into normalcy. I read my bird book while Jenny brushed her hair before bed. She said that one day she would go to a fancy salon and have her hair washed and cut and blow-dried big and bouffant and come out looking like Lana Turner.

  I tried to listen while Jenny talked about school and our friends, but my mind kept going back to the kiss, to Gloria and what it felt like. I remembered the look on Gloria’s face, the fear when she pulled me out of the water, the shock then shy happiness when our lips parted, the never-ending smile. The deep want and need to do it again and again. That was worth the lies to my sister, at least for tonight.

  In the morning we went to school and Jenny and me hung out with Rudy, Gloria and Scott Westin. Everything was normal. Gloria and I occasionally caught each other’s eye and tried to hide a smile. We talked about Rudy’s stellar plan to be running back for the Lions, Gloria’s useless piano lessons, Jenny’s latest fashion experiment with one of the cousins’ hand-me-down dresses. Gloria and I acted like friends who weren’t that close. Rudy and me joked and he teased Scott. Jenny laughed, called Rudy names. When Scott wasn’t around, and Rudy and Gloria were over the shock of learning her name, we finally talked about Mary Ridley and what we should do. We never came to an agreement.

  Rudy wanted to handle it ourselves, not involve the cops. Gloria wanted more hard evidence so we could nail the guy first time. Jenny wanted to go to Samuels right this minute, and me, I wanted to leave it to the professionals and concentrate on keeping up my grades, keeping the farm going.

  The four of us discussed it most days and soon the urgency waned except with Jenny. With her, Mary Ridley was like a best friend she had to save. Jenny spoke about her with such familiarity, I almost believed she knew the girl and it scared me. Jenny was slipping away again and this time, I didn’t know how to keep her with me. I knew it would need all my attention but I couldn’t give it to her.

  No. Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  My heart overrode my head, pulled me away from my sister and toward my friend. Girlfriend? I still wasn’t sure.

  On Wednesday, after our second lesson with Miss Eaves, Gloria and I went to Fisher’s Point. I kissed her again and I lied about it again. I hated myself for lying. I knew keeping something like this from Jenny would hurt her when she found out but I couldn’t help it. I was swept up with Gloria, it was all so new and frightening, all raw nerves and electric shocks but oh so wonderful.

  I kept putting off going to Samuels despite Jenny’s demands, kept giving her reasons to delay, kept sneaking off to see Gloria and lying about it again and again, and not just to Jenny. To Rudy. To M
omma. To Eric. Those lies became an endless stream rushing from one trickle. They soaked everything, fed into everything. They bore me along until I found myself in the middle of an ocean, my boat leaking, my oars broken. I felt the pressure building all around me. From below the water, Mary Ridley’s phantom clawed for me, Death’s icy hand reaching. From above, Jenny pushed me in one direction, Rudy in another, my conscience stuck between them, my nerves wrecked and shaking.

  But Gloria sat with me in the boat and calmed the tide. I could ignore almost anything else. Her and me and nobody else, just for a little while longer.

  14

  That summer was like watching a car wreck in slow motion. First the minivan jack-knifed, then the motorcycle swerved and skidded onto its side, a truck screeched its brakes and slammed into the minivan, crushed the motorcycle, another car flipped, rolled and smashed, joined the metal fray. It was like a magnet pulled all these vehicles, these events, together into one big mess. Gasoline spilled, sparks flew, the glut of twisted steel became a fireball on the highway.

  That was summer ’72. The black smoke that wouldn’t clear no matter the strength of the wind, the sallow faces and red-rimmed eyes of the townsfolk. It made all my secrets feel tiny, insignificant.

  July 15th was the minivan, the week after my run-in with Darney Wills at the Backhoe. The first destruction that led to all the rest. Everyone in Larson remembers where they were that day. They say, ‘I was cashing a cheque when …’ and trail off before getting to the meat of it. There was never a need to say it outright, everyone knew. ‘I was in the Backhoe when the sheriff came in …’, ‘I was making dinner when my husband rang to say …’

  I was at home with Jenny. It was a Saturday and we were clearing up the plates after Eric made lunch. He was outside with Momma, having a smoke on the porch. When me and Jenny were done wiping down the dinner table, I said I needed to speak to Eric. Eric was like Superman to me back then. The way he fit so much into one day. It felt like he was always at home, always at the mill, always at a town meeting talking about a protest and then always looking after us when Momma was working or drinking or sleeping it off. He was the closest I ever got to a real father. Him and Frank. I thought I’d ask him to fix the tyre swing. Old man Briggs two farms over still had those tyres he promised us a few years back. I’d seen them piled up at the edge of his yard, higher than ever, and I was sure he wouldn’t miss one or two.