The Life After War Collection

by Angela White

  1992

  Chapter Eight

  The Best Days

  June

  Angie

  I didn’t see Marc or have any contact with him for a long time. During Christmas, he stayed at the farm to help with a wave of births that no one had been expecting until spring. In the spring of 1992, the next round of babies kept everyone busy. By July, I wasn’t sure I could stand it much longer, but I kept up a great act. I didn’t think anyone except maybe Patty knew how much I missed him during those nineteen months.

  Because he needed older help that he had to pay for, Georgie didn’t want me in the restaurant this summer. He wanted the chatty teenagers with their bubble gum and their groups of friends who hung around and ordered food and drinks all day while playing the games in the lounge. I was ecstatic. I would have two full months to build on the clubhouse. I had gathered a lot of material from the rubble piles, though I still skipped the ones that had come from the café where five people had lost their lives.

  It was a couple weeks before the fireworks would be shooting high above the corn again and I was hoping to view it from the sort of hidden safety of the clubhouse. Thanks to the extra weeds and bushes this year, you couldn’t tell there was even a path until you got right up on it, and the clubhouse area was no longer visible from three sides. Only the farmer on his tractor might get an occasional glimpse as he rolled by. Since we weren’t on his property, I didn’t think he would care, but whenever I saw him, I always ducked out of sight. Marc and I both liked it that we had this place to go to. We didn’t want it to be ruined.

  As if I’d conjured him with my thought, Marc’s musky smell hit me in a thick wave.

  “Hello?” I called, afraid to say his name.

  There was only bugs and crickets of the June afternoon in reply.

  “He’s been here,” I murmured, wondering if he’d left anything for me. I hurried inside to find the fire going and my heart pounded again. Marc wouldn’t have left the fire going. He was coming back!

  I went outside to wait and spotted his jacket hanging in the branches. We’d agreed our coats would be camouflaged that way, but it was also a code. If they were turned inside out, we had company.

  I hovered in the clearing around the frame of the clubhouse that I’d finished just last week. I hoped Marc still liked me. During the time that we’d been apart, I had begun to develop a woman’s body.

  The lip licking and peep shows I had no choice but to accept from Georgie, but as puberty slapped me and I had to have a bra, the neighborhood boys also noticed. I spent most of the spring indoors or at Patty’s shop, and I was grateful for the days that she felt well enough to drive me home.

  School was no better. I had to change clothes for gym, run and jump. It drew attention to how fast I was maturing and caused me problems from both the girls and the boys. Even the teachers gazed at me in funny ways. The pale child with a teenager’s body. The freak.

  Any place I went, there was tension or danger, and carrying so much in my young heart was hard because I didn’t know how to get rid of the nasty moods or the anger at the unfairness. Many of my jumps on the tire swing might have killed me if I’d missed and landed in the ravine below. I’d also been sleeping in my classes this year, the result of repeatedly jerking awake to the sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door. It caused my grades to fall, which earned me punishments.

  At home, I sat on the couch for hours without moving, replaying my short moments with Marc. I was alone in my head, but nothing could take away my pain. When Marc finally returned, I was able to feel the sun again, taste the food. For that one moment, I was alive. The rest of the time, I existed in hell. I had no one to turn to and before I could get old enough to run away, Georgie would have me. I knew the scene in vivid detail now. He’d described it while my loving mother lay in her bed with her trashy novels and let me wrestle her new husband on the couch for my panties. Georgie didn’t like me to wear any, so he felt things better when he made me sit on his lap.

  I can’t tell you how much I hated them, how I hated my life. The easiest way out scared me. I’d had a blade against my wrist more than a few times, but the power inside had refused to let me take the final step. That left enduring until I could run, and I knew I needed help. I had hope that Marc might be able to when I was older, but I knew deep down that he would probably end up hurting me, too. I wasn’t good enough for him, even if our ages and family issues hadn’t been between us, but I wanted him! My obsession worried me.

  Patty helped there.

  “Some people call to us girl, on the inside. Ain’t no fightin’ that pull.”

  I nodded as if I understood and she smiled, golden scarves winking in the light from her small stove fire.

  “Think of it like a puzzle. Each piece fits in one spot. Hearts are like that. For each puzzle, each person, there are a set number of pieces. Your home, friends, children, lovers. Some fit perfectly, but some, you have to bend the edges to make them fit.”

  Patty leaned in so I could hear her over the howling snowstorm that no one cared if I was out roaming through.

  “Don’t do that more than you have to. If it’s not a fit, then move on.”

  “But how do you know?” I asked.

  “If you have to change to keep someone, that’s bending corners. So is stealing and lying for them.”

  “What if I did those things on my own?” I’d inquired lowly. “Without the other person knowing?”

  Patty seemed to understand and said, “Judge by how much you feel for them. If you can’t stand to be apart and you both lie so that you don’t have to be, that’s not bending. It’s stealing happiness.”

  As Marc appeared on the path, taller and even more handsome with longer hair, he smiled when he spotted me and I finally got it. Marc was my happiness. I was stealing him and that was okay, because he was stealing me, too. What Georgie wanted would break my corners and that was wrong. The difference was in my willingness.

  It was a relief to know that even though Georgie was the adult and Marc and I were the kids, we were right and he was wrong. It was also incredibly frustrating because as kids, there was little we could do fight the injustices that were always being forced on us.

  Marc

  I had suffered through movies where people fell in love in seconds and thought it was a crock. I’d read books where the hero swept the princess off her feet to live happily ever after and I’d snorted. Even now, it was hard to believe that the reaction my magazines had drawn was little compared to the welcome on Angie’s sweet face. It was as if nothing else in the world mattered but me.

  I soaked up that feeling like a fish out of water. To her, I was the knight sweeping away the princess. I was the soulmate. I knew she viewed me that way, but I came for the feeling of being with someone like me for a little while. With Angie, I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t.

  “Hiya, baby-cakes!”

  Her giggle in response sent butterflies into my stomach as if to mock my previous denial of any attraction, but her pleasure always had that effect on me. I came forward with open arms, hoping she was ready for a hug. I hadn’t had a real one in over a year.

  Angie ran to me, still giggling, and I spun her around as I sometimes did with the younger neighborhood kids. Her amusement floated over the corn and healed the wound her absence had caused.

  I sat her on her feet and held up a small bag. “Want to have a picnic in the corn?”

  She agreed eagerly and I prepared the meal that I’d planned. I had even brought one of Judy’s lunch bags to carry it in.

  While I cooked the two hamburger patties that Larry had let me pay for by chopping wood while he relaxed, Angie told me about the things that had been going on in town. I always felt out of the loop now.

  “Another fire in the trailer park and we’ll have enough wood to finish the first wall.”

  I scanned the pile she’d brought over to work with and then the edge of the hidden pile that I could
barely view from where we sat. She’d gotten a lot done.

  I flipped the burgers and laid the towel out to prepare the sandwiches on, thinking it would be great to have protection when it rained or snowed. Then we could still come here and be together.

  Guilt came with that thought and Angie met my eye, pausing midsentence about the charity drive to buy the fire survivor a bus ticket to where their relatives lived.

  “Please.”

  I didn’t know exactly what she was begging for, but I wouldn’t have said no to anything at that moment. She was so sad.

  “I need you. You need me. Why does it have to be more right now?”

  “It doesn’t,” I agreed, pushing away the side of my nature that had clearly come from my parent’s constant harping on evil and sins. “Let’s have a picnic and then we’ll swing if you want.”

  “Can we go to the creek?”

  That suggestion made me uneasy. There would be other kids there. “How late?”

  “Georgie and mom will be at the restaurant until ten tonight. I’m free for a while.”

  “It’ll be dark probably.”

  “You’ll bring a light?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I need some worms. The man at the IGA said if I catch the right fish, he‘d buy them. I’m going to try it.”

  I liked that about Angie. She was resourceful and ambitious, but not in the bad ways. She didn’t want to be prom queen or control the town. She wanted to make money to take care of herself. I wished more girls were like that. If they were, I wouldn’t be so nervous about dating.

  Angie stiffened and I cursed myself for letting my thoughts run down that path.

  “It’s ready. Help me pack it up.”

  Angie pretended as if she wasn’t hurt and we hurried off to have our picnic in the forbidden cornfield. Adults would have asked how we could stand the heat, but laying in the dirt row was about the coolest place we could be, aside from the creek. It was one of those little secrets that the adults had known before they became adults. I could feel myself slipping into that sometimes and it scared me. I wanted to keep my imagination or whatever it was that allowed me to have hope.

  After the food was gone and we’d belched enough to scare the crows away, Angie bagged up the mess while I lit a cigarette. I’d recently picked up the habit. I hoped it wouldn’t bother her, but I really enjoyed it.

  “Can I try that?”

  I shook my head, giving the reason she would come to hate hearing. “You’re not old enough to make up your own mind about it yet.”

  Angie shrugged, nose wrinkling as she caught the small puffs the wind carried toward her.

  “Does it taste good?”

  I considered the question and then said, “Not really. It just feels good.”

  “Okay.”

  A minute later, we heard the tractor coming and stared at each other in fear.

  “Come on!”

  We rushed out of the corn to collapse on the ground by the clubhouse, laughing even as we hoped we weren’t spotted. If the farmer told mother, we would be in trouble.

  I saw the sky above us had changed and frowned. “I don’t think we can go to the creek later.”

  Angie saw the clouds rolling in. “Damn it!”

  I stared at her in surprise. “What did you say?”

  I sounded so much like a grown up that we both burst out laughing. Around us, the buggy weeds and trees sway harder.

  “I guess we should go,” I suggested, not wanting to.

  “Can we stay?”

  Angie didn’t ask for much. Adding please onto it might have killed me. “Let me think on it.”

  Our clubhouse wasn’t ready and trees were sometimes more dangerous than being out in the open. We got strange weather here.

  “We could go find the old haunted cabin.”

  She surprised me again with that. I didn’t know she’d even heard of it. “You’re not old enough to be up there yet,” I told her. “I’m almost not old enough.”

  I scanned the area again. During storms, most kids returned to their trailers and hoped to be let in. On the poor side, anyway. In town, there were shops and public areas to take shelter in. For those caught out here in the open and the kids who refused to go home until there was no choice, the options were limited. “We could fish.”

  Angie stared. “In the rain?”

  I felt the first drop hit my arm and stood up, shrugging. “We’re gonna get wet anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s go!”

  I ran for the creek, but not so fast that she couldn’t keep up on her shorter legs. By the time we got there, the rain was coming down hard and fast, and the other kids were gone. We ducked under the cover of the thick trees that lined the creek and I took her up a path that I doubted she’d been on before. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but only the older kids came here.

  “Careful,” I said, holding out a hand to help her across the thick log that we’d been using for a bridge to the other side for as long as I’d been coming up here.

  Angie slid her hand into mine and the world shifted–not a good time for it. I swayed, trying not to fall.

  Angie let go of my hand and grabbed my waistband, pulling me up.

  Smiling a little, we hurried across to the ground, now soaked. Our clothes clung to us, hair slapping in quick stings as we jogged further up the creek.

  I took her to the giant tree that was over the deeper place in the creek and settled her in the thickest spot. I was glad she wasn’t scared of the height.

  When I took the string from my pocket, Angie broke into a wide smile that I forced myself to ignore. No, I wasn’t attracted to her at all.

  Below us, the water was rushing into a small culvert and washing away the sides of it to expose the worms that Angie wanted to collect. Once we were done fishing, we would do that. I’d even remembered to bring the picnic bag. I would wash it out before I returned it to my aunt’s kitchen.

  I used a paperclip on the string for a hook and showed Angie how to hold it so that the fish snapping at the falling worms would get our hook instead. It took her a few minutes to get the hang of it and then she was catching them faster than I could drop the guts into the water below. In another situation, I might have used the guts for something, but I suspected Angie kept fishing to avoid the sight of me cleaning them.

  After she got tired, Angie stayed on the log as I took a shot, neither of us caring about the steady rain still falling now. We were together. That was all that mattered.

  A short while later, her small hand came up to touch my arm. “Can you stay this time?”

  I wanted to, but said, “No. Not until you’re older.”

  She understood without me saying more, but it wasn’t easy for her. I delivered a funny face that made her giggle.

  “Silly,” she accused.

  “That’s me,” I agreed.

  “Just today?”

  “Yes. We have to keep her from finding out.”

  “So she doesn’t send me away?” Angie guessed.

  “Yes. She’s forgotten by now. We can’t remind her.”

  “Okay,” Angie agreed, forcing away the gloom. “It’ll be a good day.”

  “And I’m yours for all of it, baby-cakes. I’m not going home until dark.”

  It was one of the best days of my childhood. I’d missed her and the happiness that was so addictive. Her laughter shot out repeatedly, and I willed the hours to pass slower. I was with Angie. For one day, the world felt right.

  When the rain stopped, we waded in the muddy creek and it easy for me to overlook the way her wet clothes clung to that ripening body. I knew other people were noticing, though. It had made my stomach twist to listen to Judy’s boys talk about her while we baled hay or branded cattle. I had learned a lot about sex that should have had my hormones screaming right now, but I refused to see Angie that way and that’s how we managed to hide it. Our innocence gave us cover.

  For the next years, our
time was spent almost exactly the same, except we actually began to build the clubhouse walls. We had separate lives that only crossed during the holiday gatherings that she was invited to–where we exchanged identical stares of need to hold us through until we could be alone. Summer was about the only time we could count on a short visit, making June and July my favorite months of the year. My Angie months.

  Chapter Nine

  Pushy Tushy

  August

  Marc

  “Can I ask you something? About women.”

  Larry pried his lids open in the humid morning glare to peer at me.

  “Which one caught you?”

  I flushed. “I just have…questions.”

  Larry stared at me and I hoped I held still enough to pass the test that he was giving me mentally. Was I old enough, did I really care, could I be trusted.

  “What?”

  Taking that as a good sign (he usually yelled curses at kids who bothered him), I sat down on the stump. “How do you know when a girl is the right one?”

  To my shock, Larry laughed, drowning out the faint tornado warning siren test that sounded each Wednesday.

  “Ain’t none of ‘em the right one, good boy. Women are trouble.”

  “Even Aunt Judy?” I pushed, carefully.

  Larry glanced toward the house where Judy and the other females were cooking breakfast.

  “Yes.”

  I wiped sweat from my brow as I wondered if Larry had been forced to marry her, since he was being forced to stay with her. Had there ever been love between them? My mother often arranged the matches in our family.

  “There might be good ones,” Larry spoke again, reluctantly. “I just never met them.”

  I have, I thought, but didn’t say so.

  “You serious about this?” Larry asked, sobering up a little more.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” I replied.

  “Thought so,” Larry grunted. “That’s why we never get away, boy. Some piece of ass grabs us and we don’t realize how fast things are going until it’s too late to change it.”