Somehow, seeing Bean sing something so out of the norm for him impressed me more than when he sang like Mick Jagger, although he was great at that, too. I guess, like me, he hadn’t found his own style of art, either.
I watched through the window for a little while longer. Everyone seemed to be having a fun time, laughing and dancing and drinking. A waitress hustled by with a tray full of beers. After hearing about this place my whole life, it was going to take all the courage I could get together to go in. In fact, if a couple hadn’t come up behind me just then and held the door open, I might have chickened out. I smiled and thanked them and hoped to goodness I would see Baby and wouldn’t have to talk to anybody on my own or order a drink or anything.
Luckily I spotted her right away. She was at a table by the bandstand, talking to a woman about Mama’s age, who was wearing a turquoise cowboy shirt with pearl snap buttons and purple piping, and a pair of tight jeans tucked into red cowboy boots. Baby had on a white miniskirt and black turtleneck sweater and black patent-leather knee-high boots. She looked fantastic, but kind of too chic, like she should have been at a nightclub instead of a roadhouse. They were both drinking beer.
I hung by the door, trying to decide the best way to get by the dancers without being elbowed to death. The floor was covered with roasted-peanut shells; buckets of them sat on all the tables. People were popping them into their mouths and tossing the shells on the floor as fast as they could crack them open, and the dancers stomped around, grinding them to powder. I hoped I wouldn’t slip and fall, which would be all I needed. I’d be trampled to death in three seconds flat.
Several lonesome guys leaning against the bar already were eyeing me. I thought one of them might be fixing to make a move, so I made mine first and cut across the dance floor, scootching between the dancers, and plopped down in a chair at Baby’s table. I thought she was going to pop her eyeballs into her beer.
“Cherry! What are you doing here?”
“I just thought I’d stop by and see what this great place you go to all the time was like.”
The woman with Baby stuck out her hand.
“Hidey, darlin’. I’m Maureen. Me and my old man, Woody, that big-bellied old geezer standing over yonder behind the bar, own the joint. You a friend of Baby’s?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Cherry Marshall. Me and Baby go way back. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Well, welcome to Woody’s, Cherry. We think a lot of Baby around here. Can I get you something to drink?”
“What are you having, Baby?”
“A Bud.”
“I’ll have one of those.”
“You twenty-one?”
“She’s twenty-one. Barely. She was the baby of the class,” Baby said. Maureen got up and went over to the bar to get me a Bud.
“It doesn’t seem like you’re glad to see me.”
“If I had known you wanted to come out here, Cherry, you could have come with me anytime. You didn’t have to sneak in like that and scare me half to death. And when did you start drinking beer?”
“I haven’t actually started drinking beer yet.”
Maureen brought over a thick mug, frosted white from the freezer. It was full of foamy beer and had a lime wedge stuck on the side.
“Thank you, Maureen. That looks real good.”
“You’re just welcome. I have to go out to the kitchen and see how those pizzas are coming. You girls like a pizza?”
“That would be great. Pepperoni and black olives with extra cheese?”
“You got it.” She sashayed into the kitchen through the swinging doors, the kind that all the saloons in the western movies have.
Baby just sat and stared at me. “If you’ll tell me the name of the spaceship that kidnapped my friend Cheryl Ann Marshall, I’ll be happy to pay a ransom for her.”
“Hardy-har-har.”
“What happened to your hair?”
“Lucille sort of cut it all off by accident.”
“What, her hand slipped while she was shearing a sheep and your head got in the way?”
“Not exactly, but close.”
“I really like it. In fact, it’s adorable. You should have done it years ago.”
“Well, I hate it, and it has already started to grow out as we speak. But I didn’t come out here to chitchat about my hair, Baby. There is something really serious going on, and if you were ever straight with me in your life, you have to tell me the truth about something tonight. Swear you won’t lie to me.”
“What’s the matter with you? You know I won’t lie to you. What is it? You’re scaring me.”
“Swear. On your friendship for me.”
“I swear. On my love for you. Now, what is it?”
I took a big swig of the beer. It made me gag. “How can you drink this stuff? It’s awful!”
“Cherry, I am going to reach across this table and strangle you if you don’t tell me what you’re talking about!”
As the band played so loudly that nobody else could hear, I leaned in and told her about Lucille going out to the houseboat with Franco—but not about his wanting Lucille to make dirty movies and not the part where Lucille found the pictures. I wanted to see what Baby would say about him first. I had to be cool about this, even though what I really wanted to do was grab her and shake her and ask her why our world was coming apart.
“How well did you know Franco, Baby? You seemed pretty friendly with each other out at the cemetery.”
“No, I didn’t know him all that well. I met him at a party at the Water Witch back in the spring, just before Bean got back home. We talked a little, but you remember I quit when school was out and went to work with you at the pickle plant, so I didn’t see Franco at all after that. He just didn’t know anybody else at the funeral. Then he saw me and asked how I was doing. That’s it. Really. I swear.”
I really wanted to believe her, but it sounded too simple.
“You don’t think Lucille is going to do anything with him, do you?” she asked.
“Do anything?”
“You know, sleep with him or anything.”
“I don’t think so.” It was hard to make the move, but I had to find out what she knew. “Did you do anything with him, Baby?”
“No, I did not! What’s the matter with you?”
She was really getting angry. I had to stop beating around the bush and cut to the chase. I couldn’t stand it any longer. She might lie, but I would know it if she did. I could always tell.
“Well, if you didn’t sleep with him, did you ever . . . I mean, like, did he ever take any pictures of you? Or get somebody to take pictures of you?”
“No, he didn’t. What are you trying to say?”
“Lucille said he tried to get her to do dirty pictures. Dirty movies, actually. He has some friends in Memphis who make movies, and from the way he talked, they aren’t what you would take your kids to see at the drive-in.”
“I don’t know anything about that, and I really resent the fact that you think I would do something like that. Why are you questioning me like this?”
It seemed like she was on the verge of blowing up. I crumbled.
“Oh, Baby! Because Lucille snooped and saw a book with a lot of dirty pictures in it, and she said there were some of you. So if it is true, just tell me. I’ll understand. Or I’ll try to, if you tell me there was a good reason. I have been just sick with worry about you ever since she found it.”
“Are you serious? No. No way! That’s not possible! I never posed for any pictures! Rita Ballard did, and she showed them to me, but I didn’t know it was Franco who took them, and I would never, never, never do that! Oh, Cherry, I can’t believe you’d believe it was me! Wait until I get my hands on that Lucille! How dare she say it was me!”
“Here’s your pizza, girls! Having a nice girl-talk?”
Maureen set the plate down on the table. We thanked her and I tried to smile, but it never got as far as my mouth. Baby was tearing up. She took a swig
of her beer, and I could see her lips tremble. Maureen went back to the kitchen, pretending not to notice anything wrong.
“Well, if it’s not you, then it must be some girl who looks like you. He has probably been taking them of girls from a lot of different places.”
“Yeah. You know all us gooks look alike.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not.” Baby wiped her eyes, took another swig from her mug. “We have to find a way to get a look at those pictures,” she continued. “You know who else I’m afraid might be in them?”
“Who?”
“Carlene. I have a hunch she was getting into something over her head, and since you say all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if Franco did have something to do with it. She said she was dating him, and he tried to deny it at the funeral, remember?”
“Oh, Baby. Do you think hemight be the one who killed her?”
“I don’t know. There was a time I wouldn’t believe that anybody in this town was capable of something like that, but now I just don’t know.”
“Let’s tell Ricky Don, Baby. I’m scared. We don’t want to get into something over our heads, either.”
“No!Are you serious? We can’t get the law involved until we know something for sure, and maybe not even then. There’s a lot of things you don’t know, Cherry, but now that you’re in this far, I might as well tell you all of it. There was a reason I quit the Water Witch, and it wasn’t because I had a burning desire to peel onions. Let’s eat this pizza before it gets cold. You won’t believe what I have to tell you.”
—
She was right. I would never have thought in my wildest dreams that a judge and lawyers and TV weathermen would get together and act like that, right out in public. Not to mention that smoking pot was against the law, which they very well knew. I mean, I know Baby and Bean smoke it, and so do Tripp and I, but . . . I don’t know. Somehow, kids doing it wasn’t the same as those older, important men doing it right out in the open like that and making out with women who weren’t their wives. That was sleazy.
And Baby was right not to want to go to the law, because they were probably in on it, too. I couldn’t believe Ricky Don was, but the sheriff, Melvyn Arbus, might be. He was a corrupt fat old guy who had been the sheriff for thirty years and had built a big house with a swimming pool from the money he got off of motorists for speeding. Everyone knew you just handed him your driver’s license wrapped in a ten-dollar bill if he stopped you.
I felt like I was in one of those movies where the good guys turn out to be the bad guys and you couldn’t trust anybody. But at least Baby and I were close again—probably even closer than we had ever been, because we didn’t have secrets from each other anymore. She even told me about sleeping with Jackie, which I had sort of suspected anyhow. If it took a few beers for us to get back together, then I guess it was worth it. Two months ago, I would have sworn on my life that I would never ever do even one of the things I was doing right now. If this was what growing up was, then I guess I had finally done it, but it wasn’t at all like what I thought it would be. I thought of Pilar and Connie and Sunnie playing dolls. It made me a little sad.
The beer got to taste not quite so foul when you ate pizza with it. Woody’s had great pizza. I’d come back again just for that, and order a Coke. Unfortunately, it seemed like the best places to eat around here were the ones that served liquor.
Bean and John Cool and Rocky came over at their break. If they were surprised to see me there, they didn’t act like it. We all went outside and sat on the hood of somebody’s car while they smoked and got some fresh air. By this time it was nearly eleven, and while Mama and Daddy never said too much about me staying out this late, I hated to make them worry. It had gotten to where I was spending a lot of nights with Tripp, and they thought I was practically living at Baby’s. They weren’t too happy about it—like, why did I prefer Baby’s house to my own? It was just one more thing I had to lie and feel guilty about.
“I better get on home, Baby. Y’all have fun, and let’s talk tomorrow some more, okay?”
“Yeah. Definitely. We have to figure out what we are going to do.”
“Do about what?” Bean asked.
“About shopping for some new clothes, Bean-Boy. Don’t you think we need some?” Baby tweaked his nose.
“I think you have more clothes now than any three women can wear. You don’t see me or John Cool or Rocky changing clothes every five minutes, and we do all right, don’t we, boys?”
“Yeah, we should just get us a pair of leather pants, Cherry. That’ll last us for the next ten years.”
“Aw, you women,” Bean said. “You never give a guy a break, do you?” We laughed. “Say good-bye to Cherry, Baby,” he went on. “We have to get on in and start the second set.”
“Y’all go on in. I’ll just walk Cherry to her car, Bean. I won’t be a minute.”
“I don’t think you will. She knows the way to her car. You come in with us. Now. I mean it.”
We all looked at him like he was crazy. There was an ugly edge to his voice all of a sudden. I mean, what did he think we were going to do in the parking lot?
“Bean, I promise, I will be right in after Cherry leaves. What’s the matter with you?”
“Yeah, Bean. Come on. Let the girls talk,” Rocky said.
He and John Cool took Bean by the arms and walked him in. He didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do, short of yanking away to follow us and getting in a fistfight with them.
Baby and I walked around back, to where my car was parked.
“Boy, Bean sure doesn’t want to let you out of his sight, does he? What does he think—that Jackie Lim is out here behind the garbage cans, waiting to grab you and run off or something?”
“I don’t know what he thinks, but it’s beginning to get to me. I feel like I’m smothering to death sometimes. I’ve mentioned a time or two that maybe we shouldn’t spend so much time together, but he either gets mad and pouts or acts like he doesn’t hear me. He won’t even talk about it.”
“If you want to break up with him, you don’t need his permission—just do it. You know I’ll be right there with you. Don’t let him push you around, Baby. You could have anybody in this town you wanted. Park Lim is crazy about you.”
“Park is sweet, but he just doesn’t have that . . . I don’t know . . . fire or something. I guess when it comes down to it, I’d rather be with somebody who is a little crazy and exciting than somebody who is safe and boring.”
“Well, I hope Bean doesn’t get too exciting. You’re not afraid he’ll do something to you, are you?”
“No. He would never hurt me. That, I’m sure about. It’ll be all right. He’s getting better. It’ll work itself out.”
I wasn’t so sure that he was getting better, but I couldn’t make her break up with him. We hugged for a minute, and I had already opened the door and started to get in when I remembered about Rainy Day and the Ouija board. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten it, but in the excitement of everything else, it had just left my mind.
“Oh, one more thing, Baby. I know it sounds crazy, but Rainy Day and I were playing on the Ouija board, and it spelled out the words Baby Letters.Does that mean anything to you? Like, did Carlene ever say anything about any letters?”
“Letters. I can’t think of what . . . oh my gosh. Wait a minute. Right after Jerry got killed, Carlene asked me to get his letters and burn them up if anything ever happened to her. I totally forgot about it.”
“Maybe we should go out to her trailer and ask her mother about them.”
“Oh, Cherry, you don’t believe that it was really Carlene moving that thing around the board, do you?”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
“Did the board say who killed her or anything?”
“No, it didn’t say that, but it told me to ‘ask Faye’ if I wanted to know if Tripp was the one I should marry. Do you know any Faye?”
�
��There was Faye Dean Murphy, but I don’t know anybody else named Faye. Do you?”
“No. I don’t really think that Ouija board is for real, Baby. Milton Bradley makes it.”
“Probably not. But maybe we should go out to her mother’s and check out the letters, just in case. I better get on in now. Bean will be getting nervous.”
Before Baby had a chance to move, G. Dub pulled up in his white Mustang. His car was piled high with duffel bags and suitcases.
“Hey, cuz, I been looking all over for you!” he said as he got out of the car. “Pilar said y’all were out here at Woody’s. I wanted to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye? Where are you going, G. Dub? It looks like you crammed all your earthly possessions in there.”
“As much of them as I could. I’m leaving out for Canada. I ain’t coming back, Cherry, so you’ll have to come up and see me once in a while.”
“Canada! Why are you going way off up there?”
“It’s that or Vietnam. I got my draft papers.”
“Oh no, G. Dub! Don’t tell me that! What do Aunt Juanita and Uncle Ray have to say?”
“Daddy don’t know. He would throw a fit, him being in Korea and all. Mama will tell him tomorrow, so don’t say anything to your mama and daddy or anybody else about it yet. I’ve already seen Lucille and given her a letter to hand to Uncle Jake and Aunt Rubynell. I know it seems like maybe I’m a coward, running off at night like this, but I can’t help it. I’ve wrestled in my mind for two days about it, and I know it is the best thing for me. I’ll miss y’all, but at least we’ll see each other once in a while. Which is a whole lot more than Jerry Golden and Bobby Richmond can say.”
“Well, there’s no way anybody could argue that one,” Baby said. “I bet their mamas would give anything in this world now if they had gone to Canada. Nobody will think you are a coward, G. Dub. It takes a lot of guts to leave your home and take this kind of gamble. You take care of yourself, now. Do you want me to get Bean so you can say good-bye?”
Windchill Summer Page 35