“What are you all doing?” Her voice was bright.
Ruthann and Harley Boy looked at each other, then at me.
Tracy never joined us. She never even spoke to us except to mock us for something.
“We was just fixin’ to swim out to the raft,” Ruthann said warily.
Tracy leaned back on her towel, shaded her eyes against the noonday sun, and smiled. “I thought you might be going hiking again.”
I glanced at Ruthann, but she was watching Harley Boy. None of us spoke.
“Where’d you all go off to yesterday?” Tracy asked, eyebrows raised slightly above those clear hazel eyes.
“Just hiking … in the woods, you know. Back toward our house … or … I mean, toward Ray’s store.” My words came out in a jumble. Even to myself, my voice sounded unnaturally sharp.
“Nowhere in particular,” Ruthann added.
“None of your damned business,” Harley Boy growled.
“Why? Is it a secret?” Tracy leaned up on an elbow and smiled sweetly into Harley Boy’s angry face, her beautiful eyes widening. “Some kind of national security secret?”
No one answered her.
“Oh, well, then … maybe it’s a hillbilly secret.” Tracy shrugged slightly, still smiling at Harley Boy. “Maybe a hillbilly love secret—the kind of love secret that only happens in West Virginia.”
“Shut up, Tracy,” I hissed.
“Oh, did I guess it right, then? It is a love secret.” She sat up, lowering her sunglasses on her nose and smiling brightly.
Harley Boy stood up suddenly, kicking sand onto the rest of us in the process.
“You just stay out of what ain’t your goddamned business, you hear?” He spoke quietly, but there was a dangerous edge in his voice.
“Well, maybe it is my business, Harley Boy.” Tracy leaned toward him, her eyes gleaming the way they did sometimes when she was feeling especially mean. Or when she was about to cry. “Maybe you don’t want it to be, but maybe it is anyway.”
That made all of us jump. Tracy leaned back, her eyes narrowed, watching us closely.
“You just stay out of it, Tracy Wylie,” Harley repeated. “You hear me? You better just stay out of what don’t concern you … or else …” His voice rose, his hands were clenched into tight, white fists.
“Or else what?” She smiled, shading her eyes as she looked up at him.
“Or else … you’ll make a whole lotta trouble for a lotta people … and for yourself, too. Goddamn it, just stay out of it … you hear?”
With that, Harley Boy turned and ran toward the cool, dark water. Ruthann looked at me briefly, then followed him. But I stayed put. If Tracy knew something about Caleb and Reana Mae, I had to find out what. Harley might think he could scare Tracy into staying quiet, but I knew my sister too well to believe that.
“Why are you so mean, Tracy?” I asked. “Why can’t you just stay out of things that aren’t yours to worry about?”
Tracy simply smiled, covering her eyes with her arm.
“I mean it, Tracy!” I hissed. “Why are you so mean all the time?”
She let out a soft laugh, dropping back onto her towel gracefully.
“Why can’t you just be nice like a regular person for once?”
I felt like I might just hit her if she laughed again.
“Oh, chill out, Bethany,” she said. Her voice was bored now. “Do you think I give a shit what you and your little friends do in the woods?”
She rolled onto her side facing me and rested her head on her hand. “You’re just so … easy, Bethany, you know?” She wasn’t laughing or even smirking now. In fact, she looked almost puzzled, staring at me.
I wanted to walk away, swim to the raft, and hate her just like always.
But she had never looked at me like that before. Like she actually was waiting to hear what I was going to say.
I shook my head, staring at her suspiciously.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “What does that mean … that I’m easy?”
She gazed at me unblinking, her eyes narrowed slightly. “I mean, you let yourself get hurt so easy,” she said, in the same puzzled voice. “Why do you let everyone hurt you so much?”
“I don’t,” I snorted.
“Fine, then,” she said, dropping back onto her towel, her voice contemptuous again. “You don’t.”
I sat a minute longer, waiting to see if she would say something else, but she was done. Whatever had caught her interest before was gone. She had no use for me now.
“Tracy?” I couldn’t help it, I had to push it.
“What?”
“That hike we took yesterday, me and Ruthann and Harley Boy … it was just a hike. That’s all.” I stood, wiping sand from my legs, watching her closely.
“Whatever.” She didn’t even open her eyes.
“Okay, well … then, I’ll see you later.”
She lay silently, her eyes closed against the sun.
I swam slowly out to the raft, where Ruthann and Harley were waiting.
“Do you think she knows?” Ruthann asked as I pulled myself out of the water. Her eyes were wide and anxious. Harley Boy stared grimly toward the shore, as if ensuring Tracy’s silence through sheer force of will.
“No,” I said, wringing water from my hair. “She’s just yanking our chain.”
“You sure?” Harley asked, still staring at the beach.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I nodded. “If she knew, she’d have told Mother already.”
“She wouldn’t!” Ruthann sounded appalled.
“Yeah, she would.” I nodded grimly. “She’d tell Mother, and she’d make it sound like she was doing it because she was worried about Reana Mae.”
I grimaced, picturing the scene.
“Or …” I was thinking out loud now. “Or she’d let me know that she knew, and then she’d use it to make me do stuff.”
“Like what?” Ruthann leaned toward me.
“Give her money. Do her chores.” I shrugged. “Whatever she wanted, she’d make me do it. That’s how she is.”
“She oughtta be a politician,” Harley Boy growled. “One of them senators up in Washington, D.C.” His voice was contemptuous. “Maybe even president.”
Ruthann laughed shortly. “Oh yeah, H.B.,” she snorted. “Tracy for president.”
He glared a minute longer at my sister’s small form on the beach, then stood abruptly. “Well, as long as she don’t know about …”
His cheeks reddened as his voice trailed away. Suddenly, he dove into the river, surfacing seconds later swimming toward the far shore, away from my sisters. Away from Ruthann and me.
Ruthann sat quietly, watching him while I watched her.
“Damn her,” she whispered, her voice tight in her throat.
“She’s mean, all right.” I nodded. “But I don’t think she can hurt us.”
“Not Tracy!” Ruthann’s voice came sharp and loud, startling both of us. “Not her,” she said more quietly, jerking her head toward the beach.
Of course she meant Reana Mae.
I lay back on the raft, my stomach knotting tightly. I wished I was not on the Coal River, that I was back in my own house in Indiana … or back in Florida with Aunt DJ even … anywhere else but here.
Ruthann lay back, too. For a long time we didn’t talk. I could almost feel the tension of her body next to mine. I knew she wanted to follow Harley Boy. Staying put was probably the hardest thing she’d ever done.
I cleared my throat, thinking I should say something. But no words came to mind. So we lay there in silence.
Ruthann and Harley Boy, Reana Mae and Caleb, Nancy and even terrible Tracy—all of them seemed like strangers this summer. All of them had changed. They’d gone on into a world I didn’t know … one I didn’t want to know.
After an hour or so, maybe longer, Ruthann said she ought to be getting on home to see if her mother needed help with Lottie.
I knew she was lying, of course.
Aunt Vera hardly ever asked Ruthann to watch Lottie. Little Lottie Fern was the spark in Vera’s engine. Born when Vera was past thirty, after a whole series of miscarriages, Lottie was the treasured joy of Vera and Hobie’s lives. Vera had even quit working at the A&P in St. Albans after Lottie was born. Always before, Ruthann had stayed at Ida Louise’s after school, playing checkers, working out math problems, and doing chores with Harley Boy. With Lottie’s arrival, Ruthann had her own mother at home, whether it suited her or not. She bore it well, though she admitted to me that summer she often wished she could just go back to Ida’s and be with Harley Boy.
After Ruthann had gone, I stayed on the raft, glad of being alone. I wondered where Reana Mae might be. Was she with Caleb? Had she told him we’d found their secret place? Would that be enough to make Caleb let her go? What if he simply took Reana and left the valley altogether? What if they rode away on a Greyhound bus, and I never saw Reana again? What if Jolene found them together in Reana’s bed? Would she kill Caleb? Would she kill Reana Mae? Would she even care?
I was twelve years old. I did not want to think about my eleven-year-old cousin having sex with her uncle. I did not want to think about Jolene beating Reana Mae to death, or shooting her with Bobby Lee’s hunting rifle. I did not want to think about how Bobby Lee might feel, knowing his own brother was having sex with his daughter. I did not want to think about any of that … but, of course, that’s all I could think about.
Just as the sun was hedging away behind the trees on the south bank, I started awake, my neck aching in an awkward tilt.
Reana Mae pulled herself onto the raft, smiling uncertainly at me, dripping cold water on my legs.
“Hey, you,” she panted, dropping down beside me.
“Hi.” I forced my voice through my dry throat. How long had I been asleep?
“You got too much sun.”
Reana Mae touched my chest lightly. I raised my head to see a white spot appear where her finger had been.
I rolled onto my stomach, turning my face away from her.
“Did you see Harley Boy today?”
Her voice was soft.
“Yeah,” I said, not looking back at her. “He was here before.”
She waited quietly, patiently.
“He swam on over to the far side,” I said finally, sighing heavily.
“Was Ruthann with him?”
“No.” I shifted slightly. “She went home.”
“Did she talk to him since last night?” Reana Mae asked.
“I don’t think so,” I answered dully. “She didn’t say so, anyway.”
“You reckon she’ll keep her mouth shut?” Her voice, still soft, sounded anxious.
“Yeah,” I said, still not looking at her. “She’ll keep quiet. As long as Harley stays quiet, Ruthann will, too.”
I felt her relax, her breath slowing until it came deep and regular. As she relaxed, I felt my own body tense up, bile rising in my throat. Why should she be so calm, when the rest of us were so damned unhappy?
“Where’s Caleb today?” My voice came out harsh—sharp and angry.
I sat up, staring down at her face, looking for some sign of discomfort.
“He’s working in the store.” She smiled slightly, shifting her hips.
“Does he know about yesterday?” I watched her face carefully, waiting a long time for her response. Finally, she sighed.
“No, Bethany,” she said, raising her head to look me in the face. “He don’t know that ya’ll found … found out,” she finished hesitantly.
“You didn’t tell him?” I was stunned. How could she not tell him?
“Naw.” She shook her head, her wet braid swinging heavily from side to side.
“But …”
My voice stuck in my throat. How could she not tell him? We knew—Harley and Ruthann and me—we all knew. Didn’t that even matter?
I stared at her in disbelief. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I was aware how stupid I must look—my eyes round, my mouth hanging open. But I didn’t care. Or at least, I couldn’t help myself.
“Bethany,” Reana Mae cooed, her hands cupping my chin so that I had to look at her. “Look … don’t worry, you hear? Don’t worry yourself over it.”
She smiled, her eyes holding mine. I noted again how much older she seemed than the last time we’d been at the river. As if she’d lived a whole lifetime since then.
“Listen,” her voice pleaded now, sweet and firm. “It’s gonna be all right, you hear me?” She nodded firmly, her braid flapping silently in affirmation. “I promise you, Bethy, it’s gonna be all right.”
“How, Reana?” I found my voice finally. “How is it going to be all right?”
She looked away from me for a minute, then looked back, holding my eyes. “It just is,” she said firmly. “Caleb … well, Caleb’s gonna make it all right.”
She touched my cheek.
“Honest, Bethy,” she pleaded. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s God’s own truth. Caleb’s gonna make it all right, you’ll see.”
She nodded again, not looking at my face now. “He’s gonna make it all right … and then,” she rushed ahead, holding my hands tight in hers, so tight it hurt. “Then, you’ll see, Bethany. We’ll have us a real house, me and Caleb. Not a shack like here, a real house like they have up in the city, with lacy curtains in the windows and air-conditioning and everything! And we’ll have money to buy nice things.” She nodded eagerly at me, as if nodding could make it so.
“We’ll have a big house and a big car—bigger even than Aunt Belle’s. And then we’ll have babies … at least two.” She smiled eagerly. “I want a boy for Caleb and a little baby girl for me. You know, Bethy?” She stared right in my eyes. “You know what I mean? I want me a little baby girl I can dress up and take shopping and spoil real bad.”
I stared at her in disbelief, at my eleven-year-old cousin in her too-small bikini, her wet braid swinging from side to side as she spun fairy tales out of thin air.
“And she’ll be real pretty, Bethy,” Reana Mae continued eagerly. “She’ll be a real pretty little baby, just like my grandma … my mama’s mother, I mean. She’ll look just like EmmaJane. Everyone knows she was flat-out gorgeous.”
I stared at her, aghast.
I’d never heard Reana Mae mention Jolene’s mother. EmmaJane had been dead for years before Reana even was born. Jolene hardly ever talked about her. Neither did anyone else, except sometimes Aunt Loreen. I couldn’t fathom that Reana Mae would want any child of hers to take after old, crazy, dead EmmaJane.
“Course, she’ll have more sense than EmmaJane,” Reana Mae said quickly, watching my face. “But she’ll be real pretty … pretty like EmmaJane—that’s for damn certain.” Her voice trailed off as she stared hard at me.
“My baby girl will be so pretty,” she repeated firmly, her chin rising defiantly. “And me and Caleb, we’ll be so happy then.”
Her voice rose, till it carried far away down the river.
“You just wait, Bethany. Me and Caleb and our baby, we’ll be real happy.”
I nodded. What else could I do?
Three weeks later, I lay on my belly in the back of the station wagon, watching Reana Mae waving good-bye.
One evening the week before, Aunt Belle had burst into our cottage to announce that Daddy had called her house. He had a promotion!
He would be calling back in half an hour, so Mother had to come down to Belle’s right away.
He wasn’t going to be a regional director anymore. He was going to be a vice president at Morrison Brothers’ Insurance Company.
That meant more money, Belle said. And a bigger office … even a secretary, probably.
But, most important, we all knew immediately, it meant he wouldn’t have to travel. He wouldn’t be gone all summer anymore.
Nancy, Melinda, and Tracy had erupted into joyous whoops and wild dancing at the news. Mother fairly beamed as she climbed into the big Lincoln to ride up to Aunt
Belle’s house so she’d be there when Daddy called again.
When she came back an hour later, she was smiling still. Her black eyes sparkled.
“It’s a good promotion,” she announced. “He’ll have an office of his own and there will be more money. Best of all, he’ll be home more.”
Her voice quavered, and I saw tears well in her eyes as she repeated, “He’ll be home more!”
The next few days we spent packing for the trip home.
My sisters were overjoyed, of course. None of them cared a whit for the Coal River.
Nancy was anxious to start packing for college. She was going away to Indiana University in the fall. Melinda was ready to get back to her regular swim practices before school started. And, of course, Tracy couldn’t wait to get back to Paul.
Mother sang as she scoured the oven and washed the windows. Even Aunt Belle seemed elated, though I was sure she would miss us when we’d gone back north.
“You okay, honey?” she asked one day, watching as I folded towels and packed them into the cedar chest under the front window.
“I’m fine, Aunt Belle,” I said.
And, to be honest, I was.
For the first time I could remember, I was ready to go back to Indiana.
Back to my reliable best friend, Cindy, and her grandma’s soap operas. Back to old Skipper, who bayed when anyone knocked at the front door. Back to my own bed in my own attic room in my own tidy house on Lowell Street.
For the first time ever, I was ready to leave the river.
I watched Reana Mae’s waving form retreat, ever smaller, from the back window.
Then we rounded a curve in the road, and I flopped back onto the blankets, staring at the car roof. I felt like an old towel, wrung out and hung up.
Beside me, Tracy sighed happily.
“I can’t wait to get home,” she said. “Can you?”
20
Truth Be Told
Fall brought changes for all of us. After many tears and a few screaming matches with my parents, Nancy finally left for college. From the fuss she made, you’d have thought she was moving to Mars instead of Bloomington, only an hour away. Melinda began her senior year in high school as captain of the swim team. Tracy started high school, winning a spot on the freshman cheerleading squad and catching the eye of a basketball player two years older than she was. With Tracy at a different school, I felt I had finally arrived. I was twelve. I was nearly grown up.
Prayers and Lies Page 18