Prayers and Lies

by Sherri Wood Emmons

The next day after school, Mother and Daddy took Tracy into their room and talked with the door closed for more than an hour. Daddy had taken the day off work just for this conversation.

  Melinda had gone back to Bloomington by then, hugging Mother tightly when she left and whispering that she’d only be an hour away and Mother should call if they needed her.

  Reana Mae and I took turns trying to listen outside Mother’s bedroom door until Aunt Belle saw us and made us go outside. We sat on the glider, drinking iced tea and speculating about what might be happening inside.

  “I guess Belle’s right,” Reana Mae said. “Tracy needs to see one of them doctors.”

  “What can the doctors do about it?” I wondered.

  “Give her drugs, I expect,” Reana Mae said knowingly. “Or do some kind of surgery on her head, like they did to that actress that was so crazy.”

  “Do you think they’ll lock her up somewhere?” I thought about Ken Kesey and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest again.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I reckon even Uncle Jimmy might go for that now.”

  Aunt Belle came out to join us, her tumbler filled with bourbon and Coke.

  “You all just stop worryin’ over it,” she said. “Helen and Jimmy will figure it out. And I’ll pay for it, whatever it is, I’ll pay for it. So that’s just fine.”

  We went inside to start supper. I made Stroganoff again, thinking grimly about the day Araminta had arrived and didn’t want to eat it.

  Aunt Belle laughed when I told her about it.

  “Ain’t that just like Minta?” she said. “She never liked to try nothin’ new. Not like me and Arathena. Even Arathena liked to try different foods. One time, me and her went to a Chinese restaurant in Louisville, and I talked her into ordering that kung pao chicken. Lord God Almighty, you should’ve seen Thena’s eyes water when she bit down on one of them peppers. She like to died!”

  Mother and Daddy sat down for dinner quietly, but Tracy didn’t join us. She was down in her room, Led Zeppelin blaring on the stereo.

  Aunt Belle left on Wednesday. Reana Mae and I both went to the airport with Daddy, each of us carrying one of her big suitcases.

  “Who’s picking you up in Charleston?” Reana asked.

  “Well, Brother Harley volunteered to come get me,” Belle said. “I reckon any excuse is a good excuse to get away from Ida Louise.” She laughed. “Especially after their trip up here in the car. Even Harley Boy found a way out of that, drivin’ his own car up. Ain’t that something? Sixteen, and he’s got hisself a car. That boy’s gonna go far. You watch and see if he don’t. He’ll be a big man someday.”

  She glanced sideways at Reana Mae and smiled. “The girl that lands him will have herself a mighty fine husband.”

  Reana didn’t even blush. She just said, “Well, that’s what poor ole Ruthann is bankin’ on.”

  Aunt Belle just shook her head and smiled. She knew as well as anyone else how Harley felt about Reana Mae. Of course, she couldn’t know how much more he might feel today than he had just last week.

  I wondered if he would write to her more often now, or maybe even call. I knew Ida Louise wouldn’t let him come visit, though. She would keep her boy as far away from Reana Mae Colvin as she possibly could. Lord, she would rightly die if she knew they’d had sex in his car, and on a funeral day.

  Reana Mae laughed as she walked beside Aunt Belle, her hips swaying. She had tied her hair back with a black ribbon, which showed off her long neck. I saw several men turn to watch her as we walked through the terminal. She looked like a sleek cat, ready to yowl at the moon. Every last vestige of little girl seemed gone. She was young, sexy, and very pretty, and she knew it. It showed in the way she walked and laughed and shook her hair, in the way she touched men on the arm just lightly when she talked to them, in the way she stared them straight in the eye, then let her eyes drop coyly.

  Reana Mae Colvin had learned from her mama what Jolene learned from EmmaJane—she could use her looks, her smiles, and her body to get what she wanted from men. She had power.

  31

  Innocence Lost

  Three weeks later, Mother and Daddy took Tracy to meet with a psychiatrist.

  “He’s good with teenagers,” I heard Dr. Statton tell Daddy. “Has two daughters of his own, knows what’s normal and what’s not, and has the patience of Job himself. He’ll know what to do for Tracy.”

  Tracy, of course, was furious about it. She’d spent the last several days screaming, crying, swearing at our parents, throwing dishes and one time a chair. Dr. Statton had been over several times to give her “a little something” to calm her down. She had been grounded since the funeral, although one day while Mother was at the grocery, she did slip out of the house and go to Lynette’s. Daddy had to force her to come back home. Poor Mother looked so tired, I thought she might just die.

  In the end, of course, Tracy had no choice but to go with them. But I knew she’d make it hell on them—and on the psychiatrist, too—as much as she possibly could.

  Reana Mae and I sat on the front porch waiting for them to come home. Reana smoked a cigarette while we waited. I kept a nervous lookout for the car, terrified Mother would see her smoking. Reana Mae seemed not at all concerned.

  “Everyone smokes, Bethany,” she said, waving her Marlboro in my face. “Even Uncle Jimmy smokes sometimes.”

  “But Mother says …”

  “Oh, Mother says … that’s all you worry about, Bethany. Someday you got to stop worryin’ so much and do some livin’. You got to loosen up—cut loose and have you some fun.”

  I simply shook my head. I had fun. I had fun at school and at the newspaper. I had fun with the church youth group and working on the school plays. And I had fun being with Brian. I just didn’t smoke, or skip school, or flirt with boys the way Reana Mae did.

  And Reana Mae had been doing a whole lot of flirting since the funeral. I saw her often at school, her arm draped across some boy or another, her hand resting on a thigh during lunch, leaned back against her locker pushing her breasts out. She seemed determined to flirt with every boy she met, and even with the teachers.

  Just that morning, I’d seen her perched on Mr. McLean’s desk, her short skirt shoved well up her thigh, resting her hand lightly on his arm as she bent down to watch him correct her math. Mr. McLean’s face had been as purple as a Bermuda onion, but he’d smiled appreciatively at Reana Mae when she bent toward him, her breasts fairly bursting against her tight blouse. And Mr. McLean must have been at least forty.

  Cindy told me she’d seen Reana Mae act that way with the gym teacher, too. We talked about it for hours, Cindy and I, wondering what to do. Should we try to talk to Reana about it? Should we tell Mother? Both of us knew Reana Mae could not go on like that for very long without getting a very bad reputation … and maybe worse. Cindy’s cousin had been raped the year before while she was on a date. The boy who did it said she wanted it or she wouldn’t have dressed the way she did. And everyone at school had nodded and agreed. She’d asked for it, after all. The girl had left school, and now she took night classes.

  I didn’t want that to happen to Reana Mae, but I didn’t know how to talk to her about it. Since the funeral, I didn’t know how to talk to her about a lot of things. She was sharper somehow, especially the way she talked. Reana had always been able to hold her own in a fight, but she’d never been cruel. But last week I’d seen her reduce Carrie Coats to tears, taunting her about her old clothes.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked later.

  “Oh, hell,” she said, sounding bored. “I just felt like it. Carrie’s such a whiny brat, and she was tap-dancin’ on my last nerve today.”

  She’d sat quietly for a few minutes, then said, “I guess it was purely mean, though. I’ll tell her I’m sorry tomorrow.”

  She did apologize to Carrie, but her tongue and her behavior both stayed sharp, even to me. She’d snapped at me the night before because I’d been on the phone with Brian an
d she wanted to make a call.

  “I don’t know what you got to talk about with him every night,” she said. “It’s not like you’re lovers, after all.”

  I watched her smoke her cigarette and said, without thinking, “You look like your mama when you smoke.”

  She stood abruptly, ground out the cigarette under her heel, and said, “Don’t you never say that again, Bethany Marie. I ain’t nothing like my mama.”

  She turned and walked into the house.

  When Daddy finally pulled the station wagon into the driveway, I rose, waiting to see what Tracy would be like. Had the doctor given her a shot? Did he make her take medicine, or maybe get a shock like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

  She got out of the backseat, smoothed her skirt, and walked past me into the house without a word.

  “Is she okay?” I asked Mother.

  “She’ll be fine. Don’t you worry.” Mother stopped to kiss my cheek. “The doctor gave her some pills to calm her nerves. She should be better now.”

  I searched Mother’s face. She seemed calmer herself. Her eyes had lost the strained, unhappy look they’d had since the funeral.

  Daddy grinned as he stepped onto the porch.

  “Just her nerves,” he said as he opened the door. “She’ll be right as rain soon.”

  Tracy was calmer after that. She took a pill every morning at breakfast and every night at dinner, making a grand show of it. She had to have milk to take them, and the milk had to be right out of the fridge. Then she’d put a pill carefully on her tongue, take a big drink of milk, and throw her head back to swallow. Afterward, she always said, “I feel better already.”

  Valium made her calmer, but it did not make her any nicer. Tracy was still Tracy, after all. Still, she didn’t scream or throw things or swear at my parents. She was quiet and subdued.

  But she still hated me. And she still hated Reana Mae. And she still let us know about it, every chance she got.

  One Tuesday afternoon, a month or so after Araminta’s funeral, Tracy sauntered into the living room, where Reana and I were watching General Hospital.

  Standing directly in front of the television, she flipped the channel.

  “Hey,” Reana snapped. “We were watching that.”

  Tracy turned toward her and smiled.

  “Getting tips?” she smirked. “Like you need any help acting like a whore.”

  “Shut up, Tracy,” I said.

  “Why?” She laughed. “I’m just telling the truth. She acts like a whore at school. She’s been a whore since she was eleven. Hell, she acted like a whore with her own uncle!”

  Reana Mae rose, her fists clenched. But Tracy kept on.

  “You stupid little bitch,” she said. “Did you think he loved you? I guess you know better now. He never cared about you at all. You were just easy. You still are. You’re just an easy whore!”

  Reana shoved Tracy backward, and she stumbled against the television console.

  “You shut your trap, Tracy!”

  But Tracy just laughed and walked out of the room, leaving Reana Mae shaking with anger.

  “Someday she’s gonna pay for being so damned mean,” Reana hissed before storming out of the house.

  I remembered the time Reana had shoved Tracy against the wall and choked her. I wondered again whether I should talk to Mother about it. I worried at how much hatred there was between Reana and Tracy. But, I told myself, next year Tracy would be away at college. Then, things would be calmer for Reana Mae.

  Tracy was finishing her senior year in high school. She was dating Paul again, the boy she’d brought home for dinner all those years ago. He was in college now at Butler University, and he drove a small black two-door Honda Civic. He knew Tracy took Valium, and he seemed to like her better now that she was more predictable. Paul had made a good impression on my parents. They seemed relieved that Tracy was dating him again, after some of the other boys she’d brought home.

  Paul was unfailingly polite, like Brian, but less formal. Brian had a funny, old-fashioned way about him that I loved but Reana made fun of. Paul was more casual. And even though he was Tracy’s boyfriend, Reana Mae liked to talk with him, joke around, and even flirt when Tracy was out of the room.

  I came down the stairs one day to find Reana Mae perched on the sofa arm, right next to Paul, leaning across him so that her breasts lightly brushed his face, pretending to look for the TV Guide, which was on the table right behind her. It made me catch my breath, seeing her that way, and I immediately looked around for Tracy. I was certain that, even on Valium, Tracy would tear Reana Mae’s hair right out of her head if she saw Reana draped over Paul like that.

  I heard Tracy’s voice in the kitchen, so I walked into the living room and grabbed Reana’s arm, pulling her away from Paul and off the couch.

  “What’s that for?” Reana asked me crossly.

  “I need to show you something … in Mother’s room,” I said, pulling her down the hallway.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded as soon as I’d shut the door behind us.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I hissed back. “You can’t act that way with Paul. You know you can’t.”

  “And why the hell not?”

  “Because he’s Tracy’s boyfriend,” I said as calmly as I could. “He’s Tracy’s boyfriend, and she’ll have a fit if she sees you flirting with him like that.”

  “I hope she does.” Reana Mae smiled smugly. “I hope she sees him flirting with me, ’cause he does, you know. He flirts right back.”

  “Reana Mae, you can’t do that. It’s trouble, that’s all. Tracy would have a fit, and Mother would get upset, and … and you look like a tramp when you do things like that.”

  She glared at me for a minute as if she might slap me, then turned away and said flatly, “You don’t know nothing about it, Bethany. You’re just a little girl. You don’t know nothing about it at all.”

  With that, she walked back into the living room. I heard her call out after Tracy and Paul, “Bye, ya’ll. You have fun now, you hear?”

  I told Cindy about it all, and then I told Brian. He listened, thought about it a while, and then told me to stay out of it.

  “It’s between Reana Mae and Tracy,” he said. “One of them is going to end up getting hurt. And I don’t want you to get hurt, too.”

  But I couldn’t ignore what was going on. Reana Mae was my cousin, my best friend, and I felt like she was drifting away from me and from Mother. Like she was drifting out to sea, and I couldn’t catch up with her or make her come back. She’d lost hope in Caleb, and it seemed to drain something out of her—her last shred of innocence or faith in anything good, even her faith in me. It cut me to the quick when she said I didn’t understand her. I was the only one who had ever understood her. I was the only one who always stood by her. And now, she seemed not to need me or want me at all.

  I tried to take Brian’s advice. He was smart, after all, and he knew a lot about people. That’s what made him such a good reporter. But it was hard watching Reana Mae drift away. Her friends had never really been mine, but now she was hanging out with a different crowd. They smoked outside the school doors and often came to class glassy-eyed and smelling of pot. The girls had a rough look about them, and the boys looked mostly dirty.

  Reana Mae laughed when I told her I didn’t think it was a good crowd. She told me to take care of myself and let her take care of herself.

  She began dating a dark-haired boy named Doug who wore greasy jeans and black T-shirts every day of the week. He drove a motorcycle, too. Not as big as Bobby Lee’s old bike, but a motorcycle nonetheless. Mother told Reana Mae she absolutely was not allowed to ride on Doug’s bike, but of course Reana did, whenever Mother wasn’t there.

  I saw them sometimes leaving the school parking lot, the one where Reana and Harley had parked the day of the funeral. Doug leaned forward on the bike, driving fast, and Reana Mae leaned against him, her hands restin
g in his lap. They looked for all the world like Bobby Lee and Jolene.

  I hated seeing them that way.

  32

  An Oncoming Train

  At the end of May, Mother took Tracy to buy a dress for the prom. Brian had asked me, as well, but I said I would wear my ruby red gown again. I’d only ever worn it once, and then for just a little while. And Brian said I looked so beautiful in it, he’d love it if I wore that gown again.

  Reana Mae loaned me her new black high heels to wear with the gown. She was not going to the prom. Doug was a junior, so he could have asked her, but he didn’t want to go, and she didn’t seem to mind.

  Tracy came home with a stunning white gown with a strap over just one shoulder, like an ancient Roman goddess. She looked ethereal in it, heavenly, really. And while she could not bring herself to accept my compliment, or to compliment me on my own dress, at least she didn’t say anything mean like she had the previous fall.

  She told Paul he had to rent a white tuxedo and bring her white roses, and she bought a small tiara to wear in her hair. She had planned everything, down to which handbag she would carry and where they would eat.

  Mother and Daddy smiled, watching her try on her new finery. Surely, the Valium was working.

  They were so relieved over Tracy’s transformation that they seemed not to notice Reana Mae’s. Of course, Mother fretted over Reana’s new boyfriend and actually yelled at her about the cigarettes. But mostly my parents seemed happy … happier than I’d seen them in a long time. Tracy was well.

  A week before the prom, I spent a Tuesday evening at the high school, working on a story for the paper. Brian was there, working away on his weekly editorial, and Linda Murray was typing on the electric typewriter, swearing now and then at a typo she’d made. At eight, we decided to call it a night. Brian would drive me home, and maybe we’d spend some time kissing in the driveway. Mother and Daddy were gone for the evening, out with friends from Daddy’s office.

  As we walked toward the parking lot, I saw Tracy leaving the school. She was on the prom committee and had been working on decorations. Before I could stop him, Brian had called out to her, offering her a ride home. So much for kissing in the driveway, I thought unhappily. Still, that’s how Brian was. He was always polite.