A Place at the Table: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  “What did you say?” asks Shawna, but Pete waves away her question.

  The lasers outline the carving of General Lee on horseback, and then they animate the legs of his horse so that the General is first walking, then trotting, then galloping toward some destination other than defeat.

  “How much would you pay me to yell, ‘God bless Sherman!’ at the end of this song?” asks Pete.

  “Don’t,” says Shawna. “I’m serious. You’ll get the crap beat out of you.”

  “Aw, let em try,” says Pete, all punchy and confident. “I’m small, but I’m slow.”

  “Well, there’s a ringing endorsement,” I say.

  “Wait. I mean I’m small, but I’m fast.”

  “You are fast. My track times are so much better this year with you on the team. I’ve never pushed myself this hard.”

  “You inspire me!” gushes Shawna. Shawna rarely goes a moment without being sarcastic. But neither, really, does Pete.

  “I do it for Latham,” says Pete.

  “And his big, sweaty balls,” says Shawna.

  “Sick,” I say.

  The show ends with fireworks. As soon as the last spark fades into the sky, Pete jumps up and starts gathering up our blanket and our trash. Shawna tells him that it doesn’t matter how fast we get to the car, we’ll still be stuck behind a thousand others trying to get out of the lot. Pete says not if we race. He is all hyped up. As we rush to the parking lot he keeps putting his hands on my shoulders and jumping, using me like a bench vault.

  I can’t stop smiling. Everything is beautiful. Pete is beautiful, all lean and defined. Shawna is beautiful in her baggy overalls and her long braid. The night air is beautiful. Even life at home is okay. So much better than it had been. Tolerable. After what I did to Hunter, my brother keeps his distance, an easier thing once Mama finally allowed Hunter to take over Troy’s old room. Hunter is scared of me, and so Hunter leaves me alone. And when it comes to my brother, I can’t ask for much more.

  Mama mostly leaves me alone, too, but that is only painful and not a relief. Still, I have gotten used to it, am able to forget about it much of the time, like at this moment, the soft night air blowing through the open windows as we wait behind a line of cars to get out of the parking lot, the three of us squeezed together in the cab of Shawna’s truck.

  • • •

  Back in Decatur, we stop for snacks at the 7-Eleven. I get Dip-N-Sticks, while Pete gets an Almond Joy and Shawna gets Big League Chew bubble gum. We tease her about it, ask her if she’s going to join the softball team with all of the other lesbians, and she tells us to shut up, but then she glances at her watch and gasps, “Oh shit!” saying that she has to get us home right away because it’s already 11:40 and her curfew, which her parents are really strict about, is midnight.

  “Don’t worry about taking me home,” says Pete. “I’ll just sleep over at Bobby’s.”

  When Shawna pulls up to my house all of the lights are off but the one in my parents’ bedroom. Hunter is probably sleeping at his friend Rocky’s house, where he spends most weekends. Rocky is the youngest of six kids and his folks have lost all interest in being parents, so they let Rocky throw parties and do whatever he wants. I am surprised Mama and Daddy let Hunter go over there. Surely they’ve heard rumors. But maybe not. Maybe because Rocky is the quarterback of the football team they just assume he’s well reared.

  I let us in with the key. It takes me a few times to get it inside the lock, but eventually I manage. Once inside Pete goes to my room while I go to the bathroom and rinse my mouth out with Scope. Then I walk to my parents’ room, knocking on their closed door.

  “Come in,” calls Mama.

  She and Daddy are both sitting up in bed, reading. Mama wears a white nightgown with lacy shoulder straps. Daddy has on his old blue-and-white-striped pajamas from Brooks Brothers. Mama looks so pretty that for a moment I feel like a child again and I imagine myself rushing to bury my head in her chest, which would smell of Jergens Lotion and Laura Ashley Number 1 perfume.

  “Is it okay if Pete sleeps over?” I ask, praying that there is nothing funny or slurred about my speech.

  “Did he check with his mother?” asks Daddy. He is reading a book that his men’s group is discussing at church, titled Dare to Discipline.

  “She’s fine with it,” I say, knowing she’ll probably be happy to have the apartment to herself for a night. Still, I’ll remind Pete to call her from the extension in the kitchen, farthest away from Mama and Daddy’s hearing range, so they won’t know we waited to ask for Mrs. Arnold’s permission until after they gave us theirs.

  “All right then,” says Daddy. “Now tell me, how was the show?”

  “Neat. Same as last year.”

  “Do you need help setting up the trundle bed?” asks Mama.

  “I’ve seen you do it. I can figure it out.”

  “Son, those are words a father likes to here,” says Daddy.

  “Yes, sir. Well, good night.”

  “Good night, son,” says Daddy.

  “G’night,” murmurs Mama, her eyes having already returned to All Things Wise and Wonderful.

  • • •

  Pete waits in my room, shoes off, sprawled on his back on the bed, lying smack below the overhead fan, which whirls at full speed. “Do those still work?” Pete asks, pointing to the fluorescent glow-in-the-dark stars dotted on the ceiling that Mama stuck on years ago.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But they’re pretty old. They glow for about two minutes, then fade.”

  “Do you have any more booze in the house?”

  “Hello?” I say, taking my house keys out of my pocket and putting them on the plate on my dresser. “Have you met my dad, Pastor Banks?”

  “They don’t even drink behind closed doors?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s bizarre.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Hey,” says Pete. He looks at me. “Turn off the light. Let’s see the stars.”

  “They’re kind of lame.”

  “Let me see.”

  I flip off the light. Suddenly my room is all shadows. Pete looks like a bump across the bed, lit only by the stars’ fluorescent glow.

  Pete thumps the bedspread. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

  My heart.

  Pete thumps the bedspread again. It is the same one I’ve had for years, red with white sailboats printed on it.

  I sit on the bed’s very edge. Pete, still lying down, rolls toward me and puts his head in my lap.

  I say nothing. To speak would be to confirm what is happening.

  “Hi,” he says, turning his head so he is looking up at me.

  Silent, I put my hand on his chest, pressing down on his T-shirt so I can feel the hard spot of bone between his pecs. He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed so that he is sitting beside me, our thighs touching. And then his face is coming toward me. His mouth smells of bourbon. I feel his lips, which are soft and warm and full, pressing. He puts his hand on my cheek as he kisses me, his tongue going into my mouth as if he has done this a million times before. I cannot fight this. I do not want to fight this.

  I kiss him back softly. Trying not to think of how much I want him. Instead I tell myself that we are just practicing, for our future girlfriends, our future wives. We are drunk and we are practicing. We are such good friends. Such good friends that it is hard to find a way to show our affection. This is not a homosexual thing; this is a really-good-friends thing, like Jonathan and David in the Bible.

  The overhead fan cranks and whirls, stirring the air around us. This delicious, cool air.

  And then Pete pushes me back onto the bed, suddenly and with force, and I let him, let him straddle me with both legs, pressing his crotch against mine. I feel his erection. He must be able to feel mine. I don’t say a word. To say a word would make it real and this is not real. This is not real. This is the best I have ever felt in my whole life. Except it can�
��t be happening. For it to be happening would mean we are like that skinny man with the mustache at Piedmont Park. And we aren’t like that, we aren’t like him, we can’t be. We are just two really good friends. We are just really, really good friends who love each other, who are finding a way to show how much we love each other.

  Pete is lifting up my shirt and pulling it over my head, the way Mama would when I was little and she would help me into my pajamas, only Pete’s motion is urgent. He is kissing my chest, letting his lips linger and tug on my nipple, and it feels so good I cannot say stop. I cannot say anything except to let out a little moan because nothing has ever felt as good as what Pete is doing right now, unbuttoning my fly and pressing his hand against me. And oh God, oh God, this cannot be happening, it isn’t happening, because it is so wrong, wrong, wrong; I know it is wrong even as I am bucking my pelvis up toward Pete. I want him. I know it is wrong, but I cannot say a word about the wrongness of what we are doing because if I do he might stop, and right now, with the fan spinning above me and him touching me, nothing is worth more. Nothing. Not Mama, not Daddy, not God. Pete slides two fingers inside the elastic band of my underwear and I am thinking, Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop. And then something does stop, though it takes me a moment to recognize what it is.

  The fan. The overhead fan has stopped spinning. There is a noticeable silence in place of its whirl. A light shines in from the hallway. Pete jumps off me. Mama, so pretty in her white nightgown with its lacy straps, stands in the doorway, the door open, and she is saying something, but I can’t understand because language makes no sense. I am dizzy. I might pass out. Pete looks at me and there is fear in his eyes and, weirdly, this calms me because I want to be strong for him. Daddy must have been just a few steps behind Mama, because I see him in the doorway now, too. I see him scan the scene and I see his self-assurance, so much a part of him, just fizzle right out. He is a balloon, punctured in the air, deflating as it lowers to the ground. And still I do not say a word, even though Daddy has asked me to do just that, to explain to him, please, what in the name of God we think we are doing.

  • • •

  I had forgotten to tell Pete to call his mom, and she had called instead, wild with worry when her son didn’t come home. We never heard the phone ring. The whirl of the fan must have been too loud. And so Mama made her way to my room, telling Daddy that she could handle it (did she know what she might find?), but Daddy followed her, angry at me for lying, planning to give both Pete and me a good talking-to. If Mama knocked on the closed door we did not hear it over the fan. Or maybe it was our excitement for each other that plugged our ears. That made me forget to tell Pete to call his mom in the first place. But none of that matters. What matters is that we are exposed. Exposed doing something that once caused God to destroy an entire city. Doing something that puts our eternal souls—our eternal souls—in peril. This Daddy says again and again, pacing back and forth in front of the bed where Pete and I sit, as far apart from each other as we can, our heads bowed.

  When the doorbell rings we all move downstairs, as if we are one. Pete’s mom looks haggard and exhausted, the circles under her eyes like small change purses. She is telling Daddy how sorry she is. She is wiping away tears. On his way out Pete glances at me, gives me a small, worried smile, but doesn’t say anything, just follows behind his mother.

  I sit on the sofa in the living room while Mama and Daddy discuss the terrible thing they came upon, speaking of me as if I weren’t there. Mama says, “It’s clear he wants to hurt us.” I stop listening. A softness, like cotton, settles around my brain. I can no longer be here. Mama and Daddy could not have witnessed Pete and me doing what we were doing. I have to disappear. At some point Daddy says this is too big of a problem for them to handle on their own. At this I tune in. There is talk of Riverside Military Academy; there is talk of a rehabilitation center in Virginia, a place that is known for turning wayward teens around. I know that Daddy recommends it only to desperate parents with especially destructive children. The type who chop off the cat’s tail and set the drapes on fire. “It’s not an easy place,” Daddy once told Mama after encouraging a congregant to send his troubled child there, “but better to suffer some temporary discomfort here on earth than to burn for eternity.”

  At last I am told to try and get some sleep, that there will be lots to figure out the next day, that Daddy has some calls to make, to seek wise counsel, but bottom line is they love me and they are going to help me fight whatever sickness has gotten inside of me.

  Back in my room I sit on the edge of the bed, where Pete and I first started kissing. I am so very tired. All I want is to lie down and sleep. But I know I cannot. I know I am fighting for my life and I must stay awake. I know that by morning my fate will be outside of my control. Daddy will have contacted his oldest friend, Colonel Higgins, who will probably suggest military school, while Mama will probably push for that place in Virginia.

  This I know: I will not survive either. And so I open my window to the cool night air and push myself through, landing on the soft dirt below. I don’t take anything with me. I walk slowly around our house, afraid of setting off any lights. But once on the street, though the way is lit only by streetlights, I run pell-mell, faster than I have ever run in a race, faster even than if Pete were beside me, up Lamont and then down Clairmont, which is such a busy street during the day, but in the middle of the night is ghostly, empty. I could easily trip, smack my face against the pavement, break my nose or my front teeth or even an arm. Be stranded in the middle of the road, for someone to find or someone to run over. But I can’t; I won’t. Falling is not an option.

  I run, arms pumping, through downtown Decatur, passing the courthouse, then, later, the high school. I run until I cross the railroad tracks, until I am in Meemaw’s neighborhood, on Ansley. I run down Ansley until it intersects with Jefferson Place, passing the house where Keisha’s auntie still lives. I do not stop until I am in front of Meemaw’s bungalow. Her porch light is on. I knock, and my grandmother comes to the door right away, wearing her pink velour housecoat that zips up the front.

  “I’ve been thinking about you all night,” she says, leading me inside. “I got out of bed hours ago, so worried I couldn’t sleep. I kept picturing your precious little face and I knew something was wrong. Are you hurt, sugar? I think Jesus was trying to tell me you’d been hurt. I almost called y’alls house, but I decided to wait till morning. I didn’t want your mama to think me an old fool. But something has happened, hasn’t it?”

  I nod. I am staring at one of the photos hanging above the mantel. It’s one of Hunter, Troy, and me, taken years ago. I couldn’t have been older than six. In the picture I am curtseying for the camera; Troy and Hunter stand solid and stoic behind. We all three wear navy Izod shirts and khaki shorts, picked out by Mama.

  “Sit down, sweetheart; I’m going to get you something to drink.”

  I make my way to Meemaw’s ancient sofa, covered in a floral print that has faded over the years, the once red roses now the palest pink.

  Meemaw returns from the kitchen carrying a mug. She hands it to me, and I got teary after taking a sip. It is warmed milk, darkened with vanilla and sweetened with sugar. The drink she would always fix when I was staying over and could not sleep.

  “Sweetheart, are you in some kind of trouble?” she asks.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I whisper. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

  “Does it have something to do with that new friend of yours? That Yankee boy from your track team?”

  I look at her, stunned. I nod, too embarrassed to answer her question out loud. I am so ashamed. My face is hot and I am so exhausted and I want to weep, but I fight the urge because I know if I do I will lose all my strength. I will crumble.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening between you and that boy, Bobby. I’ve seen the two of you together, and, well, I just don’t understand.”

  I hold my breath. If Meemaw says she can’t love m
e it won’t matter whether or not I’m going to hell. I will already be in it.

  She picks up my hand, holds it in her soft, wrinkled one. “What I do understand is that you are a beloved child of God.”

  She looks up to the ceiling. “Do you hear that, Jesus? He is still your beloved child.”

  “They’re going to send me away,” I say. “To military school or some place for juvenile delinquents. I won’t make it at either place, Meemaw. I won’t.”

  She is quiet for a moment, as if waiting for an answer. And then a look of certainty passes over her face and she presses her lips together and nods. Picks up my hand again. “You are not a delinquent, and you are not a child who should go to military school. If your mama and daddy want to send you away, they can send you to me. You can come live here. I’m slowing down. I need help. Man’s always saying that.”

  “I don’t think they’ll let me. It’s bad, Meemaw. They caught me doing something really bad.”

  “Now listen, I don’t want you to worry. I know how to get Mannie to do the right thing. Edie might fuss, but that’s all she’s going to do. Your meemaw is not going to let anyone throw you to the wolves. Your meemaw is going to keep you loved and safe. You hear me?”

  Something loosens in my chest, a rock pushed aside, and the trapped air expels itself in sobs and there is my meemaw, pulling me into her embrace, patting my back and whispering soft words both to Jesus and to me, trying to convince the two of us that I am worthy of love.

  Part Two

  Bobby in New York

  5

  Letter Home

  May 15, 1981

  Dear Meemaw,

  Money goes fast in New York City. There’s no way around it. The other day I was walking around my neighborhood—the neighborhood where the residence hotel is—and I passed what you would have called a precious little bakery. French. There were tiny cakes in the display (petit fours), each about a square inch in size, dipped in white glaze and topped with a rose made of pink frosting. Well, I ordered two. (One for me, one for you . . .) You won’t believe how much they cost. Two dollars and fifty cents! For two little bits of cake! The worst part was, I didn’t say anything at all. I was too scared of looking unsophisticated, like a yokel.