Red Williams is no longer a part of Moon Lake, though sometimes when I look out I expect to see him running back and forth, a bandana trailing from his head. He is not even Red anymore because he has grown into the name Claude, a name that suits him perfectly since he gained weight and married a large lumbering divorcee with bleached hair and two obese (they probably say “chubby”) children, and moved to Detroit where he is doing no more work on cars than what he was doing right here at K-Mart’s when he was twenty-one. “Pumping gas and a fat ass make you dull,” is what I should say if he should ever find his way to my door.
No, I will fall in love with someone who can hold my hands right and I will have a cute, trim, “fit” child named something like Anaximander and we will finger-paint the walls of his room while my husband is out working and doing other husbandly things. I will paint one of the walls even though I am not artistically inclined; I will paint Noah and the Ark so that Anaximander will learn his animals and get a little Sunday School lesson to boot. Then I will paint the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Marie so that he will know historical facts. I will not yet tell him that it is believed by many scholars that Chris brought V.D. to the New World. And isn’t that something? If it hadn’t been for Chris, the father of our country never would have gotten syphilis! How fascinating, the things that hold humanity together, the things that hold people together.
“There stand I like Arctic Pole,” Fulke says. Obviously, he has an erection. I am twenty-three so I can say things like that now. I can say anything that I want, tell the truth or tell a lie, but I still can’t wear sunglasses. I try to wear them for days just like today when the sun is in the east, well above the pine trees around the lake, and its bright white light makes me see dark spots.
There are other dark spots. Bobby didn’t marry Christine. He married Nancy Carson and they are living in Raleigh where he is doing his residency. They are “struggling” since they bought the house, Nanci reported to me in her last letter. (She changed her name to “i” when she developed an interest in “self help” manuals, started wearing beach towel skirts and ultimately went through EST training.) Still, we get along quite well. We only disagree on a few issues like clothes, politics, social dos and don'ts, movies, books, and life in general. The only thing we share is a love for Bobby Spencer. Lisa has already been married and divorced. Cindy is living with a pharmacist in Topeka. Tricia is marrying, of all ironies, Tom Fulton whom she remet in a bar in Charlotte less than a year ago. I am her Maid of Honor and we are wearing these awful purple dresses that are quite similar to the one I wore when I was the maid that fished out Baby Moses. Beatrice never left Maine and from what I know has never even been back to Blue Springs, though her parents go to see her. She is married and has a baby. I sent her a Christmas card last year, wrote a note, signed it “your old friend, Jo.” When hers came, there was no note and she signed her full name, her new name. It occurred to me that maybe Beatrice doesn’t want to look back, doesn’t want to remember. I doubt if I’ll send a card this year. Andy has been suspended from Blue Springs High three times for saying “shit on that.” None of the teachers can believe that he is related to Bobby and myself. He wears a paper clip in his ear and races dirt bikes. People often say that he is going through a phase, “just like Jo went through.”
Presently, I have many choices to make. Clearly I am not an I Love Lucy nor am I a That Girl. The Feminine Mystique says that you don’t have to be an either/or and I am convinced that this is true, that there is a safe inbetween. What I can’t help but wonder however, is that if this is true, why did Betty Friedan get a divorce? I am not a Total Woman and I am not a Libber. (I wonder why Marabelle Morgan hasn’t gotten a divorce?) I shave my legs and under my arms but I do not wear Saran Wrap. I am smart but I am not Jewish. I am Christian but I am not Catholic and Catholics are Christians. What was Anaximander other than Greek? I used to imagine him being Southern Baptist and then I realized what a ridiculous thought! Anaximander at BTU or VBS, ducking his smart head under water, eating little unsalted saltines. Pat Reeves is an Episcopalian which I suppose would be a nice place to be. I called him not long ago, to tell him that I really am a nice person, to see if he might still care, to see if he looks back, if he would ever come back, though I did not really say any of that. “Take care of yourself,” he had said.
On rainy days, I will roll back my nice oriental rugs and little Anaximander and I will roller skate while we watch old reruns on T.V. I will show him Alfalfa and Buckwheat and tell him how they have not changed one bit since I was a child or since his grandparents were coming along. I will show him old pictures of myself so that he can see me another way, a younger me in a cheerleading suit, Most Popular. If I married Pat Reeves, I could show Anaximander the May Queen picture but otherwise, I will have to keep that one hidden. It would upset him; he might draw on Pat’s face and for some reason, I would probably switch the hell out of him if he did. I will have a few friends whose company I can truly find pleasure in and we will drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. I will not dress up on these occasions for there would be no need in front of a real friend and I’ll just prop my mukluk bedroom slipper right up on the table if I like.
I really am not close to a lot of people because that is a very frightening thing. The further you stray, the more people that you become close to, then the higher the probability that you will lose someone. You could hear it on the radio, read it in the paper and all that you could do about it would be to sit and drink a gin and tonic, remember things about this person, the very last time that you saw them, feel that jabbing anger and guilt of things unsaid, things undone, helpless to rectify, to get another chance. Besides, Fulke keeps me so busy lately.
When I am thirty and in love, exposed in a favorable light, happy with husband and Anaximander, I’ll probably think back to right now, unable to wear sunglasses, working on this paper, sleepwalking and burning my kettle, spending the summer at Moon Lake, and I’ll probably think that I was crazy (that I am crazy), and it will probably happen when I am forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety with fuzzy hair and no teeth, drooling and exposing myself in a childlike way. I will probably be on my deathbed and I will try to peruse my dance before the lights go out, faces coming and going, and I will probably think that the whole damn thing was crazy, up and down, around and around.
But at least I will know that I was moving. At least right now I know that I am moving, sliding, changing. At least right now I know that I am a little bit of everything that I’ve ever been. I look out at the lake, that cool green water, and I listen to the water in the pot begin to boil, a temporary replacement for the black kettle. The lake is so small now, too small to ever hold all of my Could Be’s, all of the single celled creatures. I have gotten so big that the world is getting smaller, or is it that there is something out there so big that it has no answer, definition, beginning or end that makes it all seem so small? It is such a big thought and I really don’t have time to think about it all right now. No, for now, I must simply accept it as a question which has no answer because the water is boiling rapidy, spitting itself onto that white surface. I just have to leave it at that for now, touch down in the present and go and fix a cup of coffee. I simply must leave it at that, tell myself that I will return to this thought one day in the future and then I will know. I will know where this unbounded sexless feeling comes from; I will paint by number the hairs on my head; I will count the sexless single celled creatures and I will make sure that each has its very own home, its own life, and I will make the lake grow and grow, to spread and rise, slowly, cautiously, spinelessly, I will make it grow so that it will look just like it used to look, the way that I remember it all. And I will know where the earth and sky meet; I will know what keeps them from running together. I will recognize the beginnings and endings of days, years. I will know the plot of every Andy Griffith show in syndication. Or maybe I’ll just live and that will be okay, too, but for now it is the water that I am concerned with, th
e water that has evaporated right out of the pot and hidden in the air. There is a choice to make, a chance to take. I must either sit and wait for condensation or begin to begin the whole process again and again and again.
A special thanks to Rosanne Coggeshall and Richard Dillard, who worked with me when this novel was in its beginning stages; Liz Darhansoff, my agent; and Shannon Ravenel, whose editing and sound advice have been invaluable. Thanks to Johnny and Melba McCorkle and Jan Gane.
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© 1984, 2003 by Jill McCorkle
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E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-202-6
Also by Jill McCorkle
NOVELS
July 7th
Tending to Virginia
Ferris Beach
Carolina Moon
STORIES
Crash Diet
Final Vinyl Days
Creatures of Habit
Going Away Shoes
The Cheer Leader Page 22