by Sandra Brown
Resentment gnawed at him like the raw liquor in his belly. She would be sorry. Before long she would come crawling back. She had a crush on Neal, that’s all. It wouldn’t last. It was him, Gary, she truly loved. What they had was too deep and abiding to throw away. Sooner or later Jade would regain her senses. In the meantime, he would… what?
His sense of responsibility reared its ugly head and drew him to his feet. He went out to slop the hog.
Chapter Seven
“Say, Jade.”
Jade turned away from her locker, clutching her textbooks to her chest. So few of her classmates spoke to her anymore that she was surprised and pleased that someone—anyone—had approached her.
The facts were murky, but the scuttlebutt around Palmetto High School was that Jade had been unfaithful to Gary Parker with Neal Patchett. It was said that as a result of Jade’s two-timing, Gary had dumped her. In two and a half months, she had gone from being the most sought-after girl in the senior class to a social leper. While her classmates were caught up in the festive whirl preceding graduation, Jade was shunned.
The gossip wasn’t contained within the walls of the high school. It had filtered into the community at large. When it reached Pete Jones’s ears, he fired her from her part-time job with the thin excuse that he would prefer to have a young man working for him.
Things were no better at home. Velta complained that she was getting the cold shoulder at work. “I heard my co-workers whispering about you. Didn’t I tell you that you’d be blamed for what happened? You should have had that colored man bring you straight home. It was a big mistake to go to the hospital. Once you did that, you sealed your fate and mine.”
Jade had no one to take her problems to. She would never forgive Donna Dee for betraying her. Apparently Donna Dee hadn’t forgiven her, either, for inciting Hutch’s libido. The chasm between them could never be bridged, but since there wasn’t anyone to replace Donna Dee, losing her best friend and confidante was like losing a limb.
But it was for losing Gary that Jade wept bitterly every night. It was obvious from his attitude that he believed the lies being circulated about her. His anger and confusion were a fertile ground for ugly suspicions, which Neal Patchett had sown and cultivated. Working as subtly as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Neal continued to torment Gary with innuendos. He tracked Jade like a bloodhound, his smoldering looks conveying that they shared a naughty secret. His suggestiveness made her sick to her stomach. But she hated Neal’s gloating worse for Gary’s sake. His self-confidence and pride had taken as brutal a beating as her body had.
“Hi, Patrice,” she said to the girl who had the courage to buck the trend and speak to her.
Patrice Watley was plump, bleached, and wild. Jade didn’t recall having a conversation with her since junior high, when the line between the good girls and the bad girls was distinctly drawn. Until recently, they had been on opposite sides of that line.
Patrice’s mother had recently obtained her fourth divorce and was in hot pursuit of husband number five. Her active love life had always kept her so busy that Patrice had been left to her own devices. As a result, she had packed a lot of living into eighteen years.
“I don’t mean nothing by this, you understand,” she whispered, moving closer to Jade. “But are you knocked up?”
Jade’s knuckles turned white against the spines of her schoolbooks. “Of course not. What makes you ask a thing like that?”
Patrice smacked her lips with impatience and a trace of sympathy. “Say, look, Jade, I said I don’t mean nothing by asking, but I know the signs, okay? I’ve been there twice myself.”
Jade bowed her head, mindlessly poking her thumb into the silver coil of her spiral notebook. “I haven’t been feeling well, that’s all.”
“How late are you?”
Jade felt herself crumbling on the inside. “Two months.”
“Je-sus! And you’re supposed to be smart. You ain’t got much time, girl. You’ve got to do something fast.”
Jade had refused to acknowledge what her late periods might signify. She hadn’t even considered what she would do if the worst possibility became an actuality.
“You’re gonna get rid of it, aren’t you?”
“I… I hadn’t thought—”
“Well, if you decide to, I can help,” Patrice offered.
“Why would you?”
“Is it Neal Patchett’s kid?”
Patrice had heard the rumors. Jade shrugged, indicating that she couldn’t be sure whose child she might be carrying.
“Well, on the chance that it’s Neal’s, I want to help you.” Patrice took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, although smoking wasn’t permitted in the school building. She tilted back her head and sent a plume of smoke ceilingward.
“The son of a bitch did the same thing to me the summer after eighth grade. That was my first. My mama went positively apeshit. My stepdaddy at the time refused to pay for the abortion, so Mama went to Neal’s old man for the money. Say, you want a cig? You’re lookin’ a little green around the gills.”
Jade waved the cigarette smoke away from her face. “No, thanks.”
“Where was I? Oh, yeah. So anyway, old Ivan gave us five hundred dollars. I went to Georgie over in nigger town. She only charges fifty, so we made money on the deal. Wouldn’t you know it,” she said, her irritation plain, “My old lady kept every frigging cent. Anyway, I’d be glad to speak to Georgie about you. She’s kinda particular and doesn’t like to take anybody who ain’t referred, you know? And she’s real secretive ’cause she doesn’t want her other businesses to suffer.”
“What other businesses?”
Patrice lowered her voice. “Besides abortions, she has another sideline, although she’s supposed to be a seamstress. If you don’t have much money and don’t want anybody to find out, Georgie’s the one to do it.” She took another drag of her cigarette. “Look, I know this is a lot to take in. You can tell me to fuck off and I’ll fuck off. It ain’t no skin off my nose either way, see?”
“I appreciate your offer, Patrice, but I’ve got to think about it. I’m not even sure that I’m… that it’ll be necessary.”
Patrice glanced down at Jade’s midsection and shrugged. “Sure. I understand, kiddo. The first time ’bout shivered my gizzard, too. But my old lady said no way in hell was she gonna have a squalling brat around the house. Besides, Neal Patchett is such a prick, who in her right mind would want to have his bastard?”
Jade’s stomach rebelled at the thought. “I’ll let you know what I decide, Patrice. Thanks.” She rushed toward the nearest restroom. A few minutes later she left the stall. Weakly bending over the sink, she thrust her hands into cold water and splashed it on her face.
“It’s not a baby,” she whispered to her pale reflection in the mirror. “It’s not anything. It’s slime.”
* * *
After that, each time Jade met Patrice in the hallway, Patrice raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry. Jade pretended not to notice, although Patrice had prompted her to admit that there had been another severe consequence of the rape.
She was pregnant.
She still refused to think of the fetus in terms of an individual, a baby. She’d wanted to postpone making a decision about it until after receiving her diploma, which was only a few weeks away. But the life inside her was developing.
She was very careful about the way she dressed. Nevertheless, if Patrice had guessed, it was only a matter of time before others would. Her worst fear was that someone would share his suspicions with Gary. He must never know. Pregnancy was irrefutable proof that she had been with someone other than him. Could she get through graduation without his finding out? Dare she try?
Despite everything, she had been named salutatorian of her class. Gary was valedictorian. She was so proud of him, although she didn’t dare congratulate him personally. He was dating another girl, and when Jade happened to meet him in the hall, he always looked the other way.
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The honor of being second in her class was a consolation prize in which she took pride. Years of study and hard work had gone into the achievement. With very little parental support, she had earned the honor. Damned if she was going to let Neal and his friends rob her of that, too.
When she stood at the microphone and addressed the audience at the commencement exercise, she wanted to look her attackers in the eye. They wouldn’t see her cowed. They had raped her body and her reputation, but she was going to go out with her dignity intact.
But what if people snickered behind their engraved programs over the pregnancy she had tried unsuccessfully to conceal?
During prom week, while her classmates made big plans for that important weekend, Jade agonized over her problem. During a class change, one of the women counselors approached her.
“Who are you going to the prom with, Jade?”
“I’m not going, Mrs. Trenton.”
“Not going? No one’s asked you?”
“That’s right.” Neal had, but Jade had hung up on him without even honoring his tongue-in-cheek invitation with a reply. He’d even had the gall to suggest that they double date with Hutch and Donna Dee.
Mrs. Trenton looked her over carefully. “I’d like you to come by my office and see me one day this week, Jade. I believe we need to talk.”
She knows.
As Jade moved down the school corridor, she realized that the choice to act now or to wait had been taken away from her. For that she was almost relieved. She wouldn’t have to dwell on the dilemma any longer, or weigh her options. She merely had to act, go through the motions, and get it over with as soon as possible. When classes were dismissed for the day, she sought out Patrice Watley.
* * *
Jade had rarely gone into that part of town—and certainly never alone. To get there she had to cross the railroad tracks and drive past the deserted depot and the cotton gin, which was no longer in operation. Only then was she officially in “nigger town.”
Several years earlier, Velta had hired a black woman to do their ironing. Whenever they went to the lady’s house, Velta would order Jade to stay in the car and not to speak to anyone. After a few months, Velta had decided that having the ironing done was too expensive. “Besides,” Jade overheard her telling a friend, “it scares me to death to go into that part of town. You never know what they’re going to do.”
A child, Jade hadn’t understood what Velta feared would happen to them when they ventured across the tracks. No one had ever approached the car, spoken to them, or exhibited the merest interest or suggestion of threat. In fact, the ironing lady had always sent out several teacakes wrapped in a paper napkin for Jade. Flaky, buttery, golden, sugar-sprinkled disks—they had looked and smelled mouth-watering. She’d never had an opportunity to find out how they tasted, though. Velta had refused to let her eat them and threw them away the instant they returned home.
Jade parked her mother’s car beneath a crepe myrtle tree a block away from the address Patrice had scribbled down for her. As she had pressed the slip of paper into Jade’s hand, she whispered, “I’ll call Georgie and tell her to be expecting you. Take cash.”
The cash, which was most of what she had saved from working in Pete Jones’s store, was inside the pocketbook she tucked beneath her arm as she went down the cracked and buckled sidewalk. Some of Velta’s prejudicial paranoia had rubbed off on her, she was ashamed to realize. She kept her eyes lowered, looking neither right nor left as she passed the row of small houses that were packed wall-to-wall against each other on their narrow lots.
Georgie’s house looked exactly like all the others. In spite of the cold fear in her gut and the serrated blade of her conscience that was sawing against her heart, Jade was curious about what went on there. The house was only two rooms wide, but deep, so that the back porch was almost even with the alley behind the house. It had been painted at one time, though now that white paint was a distant memory. The green tarpaper roof was patched and peeling. The metal chimney had rusted and left a brown stain bleeding down the exterior wall.
“Don’t let appearances fool you,” Patrice had told her. “Old Georgie’s one rich nigger. She could blackmail half the population in the county if she saw fit.”
From the outside, it appeared that no one was home. Heavy shades had been pulled over all the windows. Mustering her courage, Jade went up the front sidewalk, stepped onto the porch, and knocked on the frame of the screen door.
She felt dozens of eyes boring into her back from hiding places, but she reasoned that that was only her imagination. She didn’t dare turn around either to nullify or to confirm her fears.
It suddenly struck her that there was no one else on the street—no cars passing by, no children playing in front yards, no young mothers pushing baby strollers along the sidewalks. Georgie’s neighbors were as wary of white intruders as whites were of venturing into this neighborhood. That regrettable racial schism was one of the things that she and Gary had hoped to correct.
The front door was slowly pulled open, and Jade got her first look at Georgie through the screen. She was much younger than Jade had expected, or perhaps she only looked young because of her smooth, unlined face. Her full lips were enhanced with bright red lipstick. Her eyes were implacable disks of ebony. She was tall and so slender that her limbs looked almost spidery. Her hair had been cut close to form a tight cap around her head. She was dressed in a lilac cotton shirtwaist. Jade was relieved to see that she was immaculately clean.
She swallowed dryly. “My name is Jade. I believe Patrice called for me.”
Georgie pushed open the screen door and Jade stepped inside. The house didn’t smell unpleasant, as she had feared it might. She wondered what Georgie put in all the Mason jars. There were crates of them stacked in the hall.
The woman raised her hand and indicated that Jade should precede her. Moving toward the back of the house, Jade followed the hallway that divided the house into halves and formed a straight line from the front door to the back.
In the silence, a ticking wall clock sounded inordinately loud. From the kitchen came the high, thin, feeble whistle of a simmering teakettle.
Georgie indicated a room on their left. The only thing in it besides a table draped with a white rubber sheet was an old-fashioned, free-standing, enamel medicine cabinet. Jade hesitated on the threshold.
“Why did you come to me?”
She jumped at Georgie’s whispery voice, even though she was much less frightened of the woman than she was of the table with the white rubber sheet and the medicine cabinet, which contained stainless steel implements capable of maiming or killing.
“I have something that needs taken care of,” Jade answered huskily.
Georgie held out her hand. At first Jade was puzzled by the gesture. When she realized what it signified, she fumbled in her handbag for her wallet, took out five ten-dollar bills, and stacked them onto Georgie’s pink palm. She was professional enough to get her money up front, but lady enough not to bluntly ask for it. It disappeared into the skirt pocket of her dress; she didn’t thank Jade for it.
“Please remove your underpants and lie down on the table.”
Jade’s teeth began to chatter. Now that the time had come, she was overwhelmed with dread and fear. She clumsily laid her purse on the end of the table and reached beneath her skirt for her panties, which she pulled down and stepped out of. Stooping over to pick them up, she asked, “Shouldn’t I undress completely?”
“Not until I’ve examined you. I might not do it.”
“Why not?” Almost as much as Jade feared the abortion, she feared being turned down as a candidate. “You’ve got to do it. You’ve already taken my money.”
“Lie down. Please,” the woman said, not unkindly. Jade lay down. Georgie raised her skirt, folding it back over her chest, exposing her from the waist down. Jade turned her head and stared at the blank wall.
“Some girls come to me too late,” Georgie expla
ined. She laid her hands on Jade’s lower belly and began massaging it. “I can’t help them if they wait too long.”
“It’s not too late for me. I asked Patrice.”
“We’ll see.” Georgie continued kneading Jade’s abdomen. Her eyes were closed. She let only her pressing hands guide her across the space between Jade’s pelvic bones, working as high as her navel and as low as her pubic triangle. At last, satisfied, she gave Jade a hand up and lowered her skirt back into place.
Jade sat on the edge of the table, her legs awkwardly dangling over the side. The rubber sheet felt cold, clinical, and foreign beneath her bare bottom. She tried not to think about it. “Will you do it?”
“Is this the Patchett boy’s child?”
“It’s not a child,” Jade protested. “It’s a… a nothing.”
“Did Neal Patchett put it there?”
“I can’t be sure. There were three of them. Neal was one. The other two were his friends.” Her eyes connected with Georgie’s. “They raped me.”
The woman held her stare for a long time. Then, quietly, she said, “I thought he only raped black girls. Get undressed. I’ll help you.”
* * *
Jade made slow progress down the sidewalk, taking small, careful steps. Her hands were cold and clammy, and she felt feverish. She alternately shivered and perspired. Georgie had urged her not to leave so soon, but she had insisted. Dusk was descending. She would have to think up a reasonable explanation for being late when she picked up Velta at the factory, but she didn’t trouble herself with that now.
With trembling hands she unlocked the car door. For a long while she sat there, staring through the windshield at the fuchsia blossoms on the crepe myrtle, thinking. Eventually, when she felt a little better, she started the car and pulled out into the street, then drove fast until Georgie’s house was far behind her.
She had to see Gary.
She told herself that the worst he could do was reject her, and he had already done that. But if she told him everything about that night, filled in the facts he didn’t know, he might take her back.