by Ninie Hammon
Phoebe, a far more decent human being than this crew-cut All-American boy in his button-down plaid shirt who had pretended sympathy just to get into her pants.
And in the utter other-worldliness of the moment, that struck her funny. She threw back her head and laughed out loud. Her laughter made Gary even angrier. He slapped the envelope into her palm.
“We’ll see how funny you think it is when—”
“Save your threats for somebody who cares, Gary. My mother taught me a long time ago: ‘Never explain. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.’ Take your best shot.”
She leaned closer and whispered. “But your little plan might just blow up in your face. Smear mud on me and it’ll get all over you, too.”
Then she turned and stalked away. She made it out to Mr. Wilson, got in behind the wheel, and turned on the key before she totally fell apart. Her tears were so sudden and intense, she spit all over the dashboard.
Reputations were issued one to a customer. Lose it and you never got it back. It wasn’t the same for boys. Gary’s tale of making it with the preacher’s daughter wouldn’t damage his reputation, It would probably improve it, make him look like a stud. But her life would be ruined. How could she function, go through two more years of high school with everybody staring at her and whispering behind her back?
“Oh, Mama,” she sobbed out loud. “Mama, I need you!”
Then she cried all the harder, heaving sobs that instantly made the muscles in her chest sore.
A sudden rapping on her car window startled the tears to a halt.
Standing outside her door were her two best friends, Beth Cambron and Shirley Finch, looking sad and concerned. She rolled the window down with one hand and wiped her eyes with the other.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked. Even though it was at least eighty-five degrees outside, she was wearing a sweater, her boyfriend’s letter sweater. He was a senior and his class rung hung on a chain around her neck. Joy had thrown Gary’s ring at him the night she told him she was pregnant and he asked if she was sure it was his.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Shirley chimed in. Sweet Shirley, chubby and loveable. Joy had known both girls since kindergarten, made Popsicle-stick crosses with them every summer in Vacation Bible School, even stood together in line at the health department three years ago, waiting for their doses of polio vaccine on Sabin Oral Sunday. They were family.
“Want to go get a cherry coke or a root beer float?” Beth offered.
Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. The worst problem either one of them’s ever faced is a zit on her nose on prom night.
“I’m fine, really. I just go on crying jags sometimes. It passes.”
“Can’t we do something to make you feel better?” Shirley begged.
For just a moment, Joy longed to tell them what was really wrong, unload on them her pain, share her fear. But the moment passed quickly. Shirley had never even had a steady boyfriend. Beth had confided that she and Jerry did some heavy petting when they went out parking on the weekend, but they hadn’t gone all the way. She knew both girls were still virgins. They’d be shocked—horrified!—to find out Joy wasn’t anymore. That she and Gary had …
“You did make me feel better.” She clamped the iron fist of desperation down on her emotions and stopped sniffling. “Knowing you care means a lot.”
“We’re still on for Sunday afternoon, right?” Shirley asked. Joy looked blank. “Riding around. In Mr. Wilson. Remember?”
Riding around was the tribal dance of Graham teenagers. It consisted of cruising down Main Street to the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, out US 270 to the Corral Drive-In for a lime ice and french fries, then back to Main Street again, checking out the teenagers in the other cars who were doing the same thing. And giggling at Martin Avery and his three friends—Marty and the Mooners—who pressed their bare butts up against the backseat windows whenever a carload of girls drove by. Not all that long ago, Joy had loved to go riding around with her friends, thought the Chinese fire drills they did at red lights were a riot. But not anymore. And a part of her suspected they never would be again, that all her pain had pushed her through an invisible door into some kind of parallel universe, and no matter what happened, she could never return, could never again be a carefree kid.
“We’ll spring for half the gas,” Beth coaxed. Gasoline had recently gone up from twenty-five to thirty cents a gallon.
“Oh, sure, I remember. Let’s do it. Cool.” Joy choked the words out between lips pulled tight in a fake smile. “Now I have to run, I have a dentist appointment. See you tomorrow.”
Before they could say anything else, Joy rolled up the car window and backed out of the parking place on the last row of the high school lot. Then she headed south on Route 79 toward Harrod’s Creek Road. She had a vague idea about how far out of town it was, but still had to slow down and read the markers on every road she passed. That wasn’t a problem though, given that Mr. Wilson wouldn’t go more than fifty miles per hour without throwing a complete vibration fit.
After what seemed like ten miles but was probably less than five, she found the sign and turned sharply southwest on Harrod’s Creek road. There was a bump right after the turn and when she hit it, Mr. Wilson’s radio suddenly came to life, blaring Little Peggy March’s voice, the volume pegged.
“I will follow him, follow him wherever heeee may go,” the voice wailed.
Joy slammed her fist down on the dashboard.
“…there isn’t an ocean too deep, a mountain so high it can keep, keep me a—”
Bam! She banged the dashboard again and the radio went dead. Then she checked the odometer so she could measure three miles. At two and a half she’d start looking for a mailbox with a cardinal on it.
The closer she got, the tighter she gripped the steering wheel. After awhile, she couldn’t tell if it was vibrating because she was driving too fast or because her hands were shaking so badly.
Then she spotted it on the left side of the road, a black mailbox with a red bird on it—not a cardinal, a woodpecker, but there was nothing else anywhere near so that had to be it. On the right side of the road there was nothing but open prairie, but the lane leading back from the mailbox disappeared in brush and trees. She knew Boundary Oak Lake was back there somewhere. It was a private fishing lake only a few acres wide. Her parents had taken her there on a picnic once years ago. Daddy had pointed out that the lake was only about five or six miles, as the crow flies, northeast of her grandparents’ farm on Seminole Road.
She bumped down the dirt lane, sunlight mottled by the trees lacing the hood of the old Buick. Her heart was in full-on stampede, her hands suddenly so sweaty it was hard to grip the steering wheel. The place was certainly secluded enough for the activity that occurred here. Neither the house nor any cars parked there could be seen from the road.
Then she hit a little clearing. On the far side of it, backing up on the lake, a small old house with a wide porch hunkered down behind unruly vines that had braided the trellises on either side of the porch steps into tangled mats and then slithered upward to take the roof captive as well.
She turned off the engine and sat for a moment. When she glanced down, she fancied she could see her heart pounding, shaking the fabric of her button-down blouse. Her wardrobe was becoming more limited by the day. Her thickening waist had already expanded beyond her jeans and capri pants. Now, she wore shifts most of the time, or full skirts with the blouse untucked above them. It seemed so sloppy. Her mother would never have allowed her to leave the house without her blouse tucked in.
She took a deep breath, got out of the car, crossed the yard, and walked up the wooden steps to the porch. Up close, it was clear that the house had been allowed to run down. The paint was chipped and peeling, the porch steps uneven, with nails sticking up. She didn’t like the closed-in feeling there, where the trellises blocked out the sun. She lifted her hand to knock when something brushed against h
er bare leg and she jumped back with a little squeak of a scream.
A white cat sat looking up at her; it had a patch of black around one eye that looked like that dog on the Motorola commercials on television. She reached down and petted the cat. Then straightened, steeled herself, and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
She knocked again.
Again, nothing.
Oh please, let there be somebody home! Please.
It wasn’t a prayer, exactly. Joy hadn’t talked to God in a long, long time.
She knocked a third time, heard movement inside. A cool spray of relief doused the flickering flames of panic, and she suddenly realized how badly she needed to go to the bathroom. Then the door opened and a woman stood just inside.
“What do you—?”
Then the woman spotted the cat at Joy’s feet and leaned down to pick it up, scolding it gently, “I been looking everywhere for you. Where’ve you been?”
The few moments of distraction were all Joy needed to reel in her shock and revulsion. Phoebe had warned her, but the face of the “seamstress” was way more than “funny-looking.”
The woman stood with the cat in her arms and Joy looked her in the eye and didn’t flinch.
“His name’s Blackbeard,” the woman said, nodding at the cat. Joy was amazed her speech was clear with her mouth so distorted. “I call him that because of the patch over his eye.” She paused. “What can I do for you?”
“Uh … I came out here … because—”
“That’s what I thought. Well, you’re wasting your time, honey. I don’t do that anymore.” The woman made a move to close the door.
“No wait!” This couldn’t be happening! “Please! You don’t understand, I have to get an …” She couldn’t say the word. “I can’t have this … I can’t be pregnant!”
She suddenly burst into tears. She hadn’t meant to, the tears had just exploded out of her. What would she do if this woman turned her away?
The woman’s eyes softened slightly; her determination remained rock-solid.
“I know it’s hard. I understand.” She paused, then enunciated every word carefully, individually. “But I don’t do that anymore! Period.” She stepped back. “Sorry I can’t help you.” Again, she tried to close the door.
“My father’s a preacher!” Joy blurted out. It was the first thing that came to her mind. When the woman froze, she rushed ahead. “So you see, I can’t be pregnant. I can’t. I don’t have anywhere else to go for help. You’re my only hope. Plea—!”
“Who are you?” The woman stood very still, didn’t even seem to be breathing.
“I’m …” For the life of her, Joy couldn’t recall the fake identity she’d created.
“Your real name.”
“Joy McIntosh.”
The woman gasped and her hand flew to the ugly rip in her face that was her mouth.
“Are you … Melanie McIntosh’s daughter?”
She knew Mama?
Joy was so shocked and ashamed she couldn’t meet the woman’s eyes, just nodded her head and looked down at the threshold of the door. And the woman’s feet. She was wearing ratty blue house shoes, the fuzzy kind, that were stained like she’d spilled spaghetti sauce or catsup on them. Joy allowed her eyes to travel up the woman’s body to her face and was repulsed by the journey. Her dress was as filthy as her shoes; the buttons weren’t even buttoned right. Her greasy brown hair was tied in a ponytail at her neck. Her face was the color of cigarette ashes and her eyes looked out in something like wonder at Joy from deep pits of sagging dark flesh.
“You’re Melanie’s girl?”
“Yes.” Joy had to fight the urge to turn away from the putrid stench of the woman’s bad breath. How could somebody like this do …? She was so dirty Joy couldn’t imagine letting the creature near her, let alone touch her. Then it occurred to her to ask. “How did you know my mother?”
The reply was a barely audible whisper. “She was the best friend I ever had.”
Joy almost choked. It was unfathomable that her mother even knew this woman. How could they possibly have been friends? But she was quick enough to press the only advantage she had.
“Then you have to help me! My mother’s not here. I’m all alone. She would have wanted her …” She swallowed hard. “…best friend to help me—you know she would!”
Now, the woman was unsure. She stood in the doorway staring at Joy with emotions the teenager couldn’t begin to identify playing across her deformed face.
“Please!” Joy begged. Then she remembered the money. She thrust the envelope into the woman’s hand. “Here’s $100 and I’ll bring the other $100 when I come back for … when I come back. That’s what it costs, isn’t it? Two hundred dollars?”
The woman didn’t speak, just stood stock still, staring.
“It’s not about the money,” she finally said. “I just don’t do that anymore. I quit. I did it before, but I can’t now.”
“Fine, quit! Don’t ever do it again—after you help me. Let me be the last one. You can quit then, but please, please …if my mother were here, she’d be begging you, too.”
Joy didn’t really believe that. In fact, she was certain that if her mother were alive, she wouldn’t be standing on this creepy porch shoving $100 at a dirty old witch. She wasn’t sure exactly what her mother would have done, but it wouldn’t have been this.
The woman’s eyes filled with tears and she gave Joy a look that would probably have been tender and kind on any other face.
“All right,” she whispered.
Joy let out a huge breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “Thank you! Oh, thank you so much!”
“Be back here at four o’clock Friday afternoon.” The woman sounded like a sleepwalker, like she was in some kind of trance. “Wear a skirt, no pants. A dark color. And bring lots of pads. You got somebody to drive you home?”
“Drive me home?”
“Yeah. I’ll use anesthesia; you can’t drive afterwards. You’ll have to bring somebody with you.”
“Then don’t use anesthetic!”
“You don’t know what you’re saying, it—”
“I don’t have anybody.” Joy looked at the woman’s filthy shoes again. “Nobody knows about this. I don’t care how bad it … hurts, I can take it.”
The woman shook her head. “You have no idea what you’re saying, child. Now, you find somebody—I don’t care who—to come out here with you and drive you home. How about the boy that put you in a family way?”
Joy merely nodded, afraid to argue. The woman stepped back and started to shut the door.
“I’ll bring the rest of the money Friday.”
The woman said nothing, just shoved the door closed.
Joy walked slowly back to Mr. Wilson, her mind reeling. She couldn’t bring anybody. There was nobody to bring. Certainly not Gary! And if she couldn’t—?
She gritted her teeth and grabbed hold of the racing thoughts before they could send her into a panic. She’d find a way; she had no choice. She took a couple of breaths to calm herself and the resolve of desperation shoved steel down her spine.
I’ll show up alone and convince her to do it anyway!
She opened the car door and leaned her head against the frame before she got in.
Oh, Mama!” she whispered. “If only you …”
Everything in her life would be different if her mother hadn’t died. Now, there was only Daddy, and he was too shattered by her mother’s death to be any good to her at all.
The truth was, when her mother died, Joy lost both her parents. And never before in her life had she needed them more.
Chapter 16
Princess carefully pulled the three candy bars out of the pocket of her dress one at a time and placed them on the table in her tiny cell. Then she sat back in the wooden chair and looked at them.
She picked up the Butterfinger, held it to her nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled like peanuts! Why would
it have a name like “Butter” but smell like peanuts?
She sniffed the Baby Ruth then. After that the Hershey bar. She’d had chocolate before, but not like this, in a candy bar.
Her face wreathed in a happy smile, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and gave herself a big hug. My, weren’t these fine! Weren’t they fine, indeed!
Lifting the Butterfinger tenderly, she eased the silver foil tube out of the outside paper wrapper. Then she began to unwrap the foil, careful not to tear it, like someone opening a Christmas present so they could save the paper for next year.
Once the candy bar lay naked on its foil wrapper, she picked it up and took a tiny bite off the end.
“Oh!” she said out loud.
She took another bite, making sure the crumbles fell on the table so she could scoop them up and eat them, too. When she began to chew she giggled. Why, it stuck your teeth together it was so chewy.
She had just placed the bar back on the foil and lifted the Baby Ruth when—
Bam!
The seein’ came on her that fast, with a force that literally knocked her backwards out of the chair and onto the cell floor. She lay there, panting, her eyes wide, but what she saw was not the walls of a cell on the Long Dark in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for Women.
She was looking out of Joy’s eyes!
A monster stood in a half-open door before her, a hideous creature! The whole bottom portion of the monster’s face was a ruin, scarred and mangled, with the jaw caved in on the right side and no chin at all—just scarred flesh stretched tight back to her neck.
She lay on her back on the floor whimpering in terror and disgust, shaking her head back and forth, but it wasn’t the ugliness on the outside of the monster that Princess was responding to.
* * * * *
The guard named Talbot came around with Princess’s dinner tray a little after five o’clock.
“Food’s here,” she called out, and slid the tray through the slot in the door. She waited and called out again. “Prentiss, here’s your tray.”