Delta Belles

by Penelope J. Stokes

  “Did so. Go look at Mama’s photograph albums. I was hideous.”

  The child squirmed her bony butt in Delta’s lap until she was sitting more or less upright. “Like the ugly duckling growing into a swan,” she mused. “Okay, maybe I do have a chance. The genetic combinations seemed to work pretty well in your case.”

  Delta gazed at her. “What do you know about genetic combinations?”

  “I know plenty,” Cassie declared. “I’ve been reading all about it. Genes are carried in the DNA, and the combination of genes from your mother and father determine what you’ll look like, talents and abilities you’ll have, maybe even personality. Did you know that it’s impossible for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child? Blue is recessive—that’s Mama, she’s got two blue chromosomes. Daddy has brown eyes, which is dominant, but he must have a blue chromosome, because I came out with blue eyes instead of brown, like yours. Do you realize there’s a one in four chance …”

  She went on that way, talking at about a hundred facts per minute, until some synapse in her brain jolted her onto a different track.

  “So, are you and Ben going to get married?”

  “Shit,” Delta muttered.

  Cassie perked up. “Ooh, that’s a good one. I should write it down.”

  “Forget I said it. Listen, Cassie, whatever you might have overheard, Ben and I have been friends since junior high. Friends. That’s all, at least for now. Maybe he’s the right one, and maybe he’s not. I don’t even know if I want to marry anyone. Maybe I—” Delta stopped short. Cassie was biting her lower lip, and her wide eyes glittered with unshed tears. “What’s the matter, Cass?”

  “How do you know for sure?” she said in a gritty whisper. “How do you know who’s the right one? The one who will stay forever?”

  Delta narrowed her eyes. “What’s this about?”

  The tears welled up and brimmed over. “You’d better ask Mama and Daddy,” she said. “I’m not supposed to tell.”

  BUT DELTA DIDN’T HAVE a chance to ask. That evening her father didn’t come home from work—a meeting, Mama said, although the exact nature of the appointment remained undisclosed. The three of them ate a silent meal of leftover fried chicken at the kitchen table, and her mother’s distracted, snappish mood precluded conversation.

  At eleven Delta was reading in her bedroom at the front of the house when her fathers car drove up. She heard footsteps on the porch, the creak of the front door opening, the squeaking protest of the loose floorboard on the stairs. Then the rasp of their bedroom door closing, and voices.

  If Daddy had intended to be quiet so as not to wake Mama, he evidently had not been successful. Delta could hear her mothers muffled voice through the wall, although she couldn’t make out the words. The groan of the bedsprings followed by two dull thuds—Daddy sitting down to take off his shoes, Delta guessed. Muted steps down the hall, a toilet flushing, water running. Then the shutting of the door again, and more conversation.

  Most of what they said Delta couldn’t make out. The words were garbled, hushed, although a time or two a voice would be raised, and she caught snatches of sentences—something about your own daughters in the house and not my decision. Mama’s voice, when Delta could hear it, sounded angry, and Daddy’s simply weary and resigned. Within a few minutes she heard the click of a lamp being turned off, then silence.

  On Thursday morning Delta awoke at quarter to nine, stumbled sleepily down to the kitchen in her pajamas and slippers, and found both her parents sitting at the table drinking coffee. The instant she saw them, she was wide awake with a churning of acid in her stomach. Her father, punctual as a Swiss watch, invariably left for the insurance office at eight thirty, and her mother always cooked breakfast for him before he went. But this morning there was no sign of breakfast anywhere—not even toast, or those little white powdered doughnuts Daddy liked.

  “What’s wrong?” Delta said. “Did somebody die? Where’s Cass?” She dropped into a chair.

  “Cassie’s at school.” Mama set a mug of coffee in front of her and pushed the sugar bowl in her direction. “Your father has something he needs to talk to you about.” She resumed her seat and stirred her coffee so manically that Delta was sure the cup would shatter.

  She looked at her father. He had his head down and was busy turning a spoon over and over in his hands.

  “Your mother and I have decided—” he began

  “No,” Mama interrupted, a tone of warning in her voice.

  “All right.” He sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I don’t know how to say this that will make it sound any better.”

  “Just say it,” Mama snapped. “Tell the truth, for once in your life.”

  He took off his thick glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, pressing a thumb and forefinger into the oval indentations where the glasses sat. “I’m in love with another woman,” he blurted out. “And I’ve asked your mother for a divorce.”

  Time pitched and shuddered backward, ground to a halt, then began to move forward again, in slow motion. On a screen in the back of her mind, images flashed across Delta’s consciousness. Her father in his chair. Her mother at the stove or at the sink or sitting in the rocker knitting. The boredom in Mama’s eyes. Daddy’s bald spot, spreading wider every year.

  Then, without warning, another image presented itself—a picture of Daddy with his arm around a woman who was not her mother, his head thrown back, laughing as he had not laughed in all the years she had known him.

  She should have had a hundred questions, a thousand. But only one pushed its way to the forefront of her mind: Why hadn’t this happened sooner? Twenty-five years they had been married, and suddenly Delta realized that most of those years had been unhappy for both of them. Caught in the quicksand of familiarity, they had gone on slogging in place, hardly aware that they were sinking until Daddy had caught hold of a branch Mama couldn’t reach.

  As the awareness overtook her, one of Dr. Bowen’s favorite aphorisms came to Deltas mind: A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out.

  Mama was crying quietly now, leaning her whole body away from Daddy, refusing to meet his eyes. Just briefly, Delta wondered what she had to cry about. Surely she was relieved. Surely a sense of liberation was mixed in there with the anger and betrayal and, quite possibly, shame.

  “What will you do?” she asked, the question addressed to nobody in particular.

  “Your mother will stay here in Stone Mountain,” Daddy said. “The house is paid for, and I’ll take care of basic expenses. I’ve sold the agency to my partner. Caroline and I will move into Atlanta and start over. I’ll be close enough to see Cassie, and far enough away to—” He paused. “This is a small town. There’s no sense putting your mother through any more embarrassment than necessary.”

  Delta stared at him. “Caroline? Caroline Lawler, your secretary?”

  Her father nodded.

  Delta let this pass without comment. She doubted it was necessary to point out the stereotype—a middle-aged man falling in love with a secretary fifteen years his junior. She supposed the red sports car would come next.

  But despite this cynical turn of mind, Delta knew in her heart that it wasn’t just a midlife crisis. It was a moment of truth two decades in the making.

  AFTER HER FATHER’S REVELATION, all Delta wanted was to get away. Instead she waited around all day Thursday, holed up in her room trying to avoid her parents. When Cassie finally got home from school Delta sat with her through the difficult and emotional conversation, took her out for pizza, cuddled with her until she finally went to sleep. On Friday she packed her bags and left Stone Mountain shortly after noon.

  Now Delta gripped the wheel and aimed her car due west, out of Atlanta and across the state line into Alabama.

  Cassie would be all right, Delta thought. The girl had amazing inner resources, a grit and determination no one would guess from looking at her. She was a fighter. A survivor.

  Her mind
drifted toward her parents. Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. All those days and nights without any real connection.

  “My parents are getting a divorce,” Delta said aloud, trying to make herself connect with some emotion, some grief— something. But all she could feel about their breakup was a sense of inevitability. How, she wondered, had two people so ill suited for each other ever gotten married in the first place?

  Delta tried to remember the wedding photos her mother kept in a small, yellowed album in a box under the bed. April 1944. V-E Day was still a year away, but her father had stayed home, classified 4-F because of his abysmal eyesight. Mama stood thin and pale in a tea-length dress with a matching pillbox hat, Daddy in a shiny-looking suit with a rose in his lapel. They had both been smiling at the camera, she recalled. Had they been madly in love at the beginning? Had they met at the altar and said their vows with absolute certainty that their relationship would last forever, that their life together was and would continue to be perfect, exactly as they had envisioned it?

  And what was the perfect relationship, anyway?

  Another image crept into her mind, superimposed upon the picture of her parents. An image of herself and Ben. A weight pressed down on her chest.

  This wasn’t what she wanted for her life. Of course she wanted security and safety and steadiness. But she also wanted fireworks and candlelight and insanity, challenge and intensity and growth.

  Delta focused on the mental reflection of his lean, familiar face. A pang of regret shot through her.

  She wouldn’t marry Ben Rutledge. Not now, probably not ever. When she got married, if she ever did, what she wanted was a relationship that engaged all of her—heart, soul, mind, and body. Not an inevitability but a choice. A partnership. A love that would never grow stale or boring.

  And God help her, she’d rather be single her whole life long than to settle for anything less.

  FOURTEEN

  JUDAS

  HILLSBOROUGH, NORTH Carolina

  MARCH 1969

  Spring break had been pure agony for Lauren. All week she had stood to one side while Lacy and Trip reveled in the attention that washed over them like a fountain. Mother fawned over him, feeding him, laughing at his jokes. Dad welcomed him home like the Prodigal, the long-lost son, and barbecued the fatted calf— or the ribs, at least—to celebrate his coming.

  Steve Treadwell had not made the trip. Lauren had fabricated a reason, some reading he had to catch up on—an excuse that caused Trip to raise his eyebrows in skepticism. The truth was, Lauren didn’t want Steve with her. Two days before they were scheduled to leave for North Carolina she had ended their relationship, telling him in vague ramblings and nonspecific clichés that she was sorry but it just wasn’t going to work out between them.

  If she were honest with herself—a practice woefully unsuited to Lauren’s temperament—she would have to admit that poor Steve suffered terribly by comparison. He was a nice enough guy, she supposed. Easy on the eyes, and a hell of a lot more considerate than most of the boys she had dated, slept with, and then rejected. He liked her, certainly, and she had no problem with being physically attracted to him.

  But once she saw Lacy and Trip together, her spirits plummeted. Every time she looked at Steve, she was forcibly reminded of what she’d never have with him. What she’d never have, she feared, with anyone.

  Precisely what it was, this connection that Lacy and Trip had between them, Lauren was not certain. But she was determined to find out, even if her heart broke in the process.

  Her chance came on Thursday, two days before they planned to leave to go back to school. Mother had determined to take her girls shopping, and although the M word had not been spoken a single time during the entire week, Lauren sensed that the clothes-buying spree was for Lacy’s benefit, a kind of pre-engagement trousseau, a celebration of the celebration to come.

  Trip had decided that, instead of following the women around and carrying their packages, he would take a drive over to Duke and scope out the college. Sometime during the early part of the week, the decision had been made that he would attend law school there. Duke University, like the W, was on spring break this week, but he hoped he’d at least be able to get a tour and meet the dean.

  “You know,” Lauren said casually as she walked with her mother and sister out to the driveway, “I think I’ll pass on the shopping trip.”

  Both mouths gaped open. Never once in anyone’s memory had Lauren missed the opportunity to model clothes for an entire store full of admirers.

  “Trip’s not familiar with Duke’s campus,” she hurried on. “I thought maybe I’d ride over there with him and show him around. We haven’t had any time to get to know each other.” She caught Lacy’s frown and averted her eyes quickly. “If it’s all right with you, Lace. He is likely to be my brother-in-law, after all.” She gave her sister a wide, innocent smile.

  Before Lacy could respond, Mother jumped in. “Why, I think that’s very considerate, Lauren. Don’t you, honey?” She peered at Lacy, whose face had hardened into an inscrutable mask. “We’ll bring you a surprise.” She ushered Lacy into the car, slid in behind the wheel, and waved as they headed off.

  IT WAS A SUNNY SPRING DAY, and at Lauren’s insistence, Trip put the top down on the Corvair. Her long hair swirled around her face as they drove. The front bucket seat, she noted, was much more comfortable than the cramped rear where she had ridden all the way from Mississippi, and she stretched her legs and leaned back with a sigh.

  Trip almost ran off the road staring at her.

  “Whoops!” She leaned forward and guided the car back onto the pavement, grinning at him. “Strange, isn’t it?”

  “What’s strange?” His face had turned a brilliant pink, as if he’d been out on the beach all day.

  “Dating a twin. You wouldn’t be the first guy who felt it.”

  His eyes veered back to her. “Lacy didn’t tell me. I didn’t know it until that day I came to Sunday dinner.”

  Lauren nodded. “Sometimes she prefers to keep me out of the picture.”

  “It’s eerie,” he said. “It’s like I’m looking at Lacy, and yet it’s not Lacy. Except for the hair, you’re exactly alike.”

  She gave a low purring laugh. “Well, not… exactly ”.’ She winked at him, and he blushed again.

  The Duke campus was a magical place in springtime—or any time of year, for that matter. A few students loitered about here and there, but for the most part Lauren and Trip had the place to themselves. Once they had driven around for a bit, Trip decided not to bother touring the law school. Instead, like children playing hooky, they walked around the grounds and lounged on the grass, talking under the shadow of the imposing brick and stone buildings.

  He told her about how he met Lacy and how they had hit it off immediately, about his enthusiasm for the law, about his passion for Van Gogh and his love of the blues. He laughed a lot and seemed to grow comfortable with Lauren, but didn’t ask her much about her own life and plans for the future. After a while Lauren began to feel as if she were standing in for her sister, as if he were talking to Lacy by proxy.

  Trip was clearly mesmerized by the beauty of the campus— the expanses of green lawn and blossoming trees, the gargoyles that leered down at them from rooftops, the magnificent gothic chapel with its central tower rising two hundred feet into the sky. At last they entered the Duke Gardens, which lay spread out as the centerpiece of campus, fifty acres of emerald velvet adorned with ponds and fountains, shaded walks and sun-drenched bridges, blooming things in a hundred hues of sapphire, topaz, ruby, and amethyst.

  Midweek, in the middle of the day, in the middle of spring break, the gardens were nearly deserted. They walked and gazed and said little to one another, stopping as if by mutual consent to toss pennies from a bridge and make a secret wish. “I’ve seen Ole Miss,” Trip said at last, “and I’ve seen Emory, both of which are nice enough. But if I had ever seen this campus, I cant imagine I would
have applied anywhere else.”

  He turned to face her, and the pure dazed joy in his expression made Lauren’s heart lurch. In that instant, she knew—if she had ever doubted—why Lacy loved him, and why Lauren herself would never be able to settle for the likes of Steve Treadwell.

  They walked some more; she stumbled; he took her hand to steady her and somehow never let go. Lauren wondered if his mind had lost track of which twin he was with—it had happened before. But at this moment she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything except the sensation of her hand in his, the soft blue lake of his eyes.

  “Let’s go sit awhile,” she suggested, and led him off the path into a dappled grove. Here the springy ground was soft and cool, with dogwood blooms fluttering like tiny fairy wings overhead. A secluded spot, invisible to anyone who might be walking in the gardens.

  Trip dropped down onto the moss-covered bank, lay back, and closed his eyes. Above them birds sang and a breeze stirred the branches. The hush was hypnotic, restful, a lullaby. Within a minute or two his breath grew even and shallow, and he slept.

  Lauren’s gaze roved over him. He had a swimmer’s body, muscled but not bulky, sculpted features with blondish hair swept back from the temples. A wide, untroubled brow, and tiny indentations on either side of his mouth, the hint of dimples around his smile. A man in wakefulness, a boy at rest.

  He stirred in his sleep. She reached out a finger and stroked the side of his cheek, lightly touching the smooth skin above the line where he shaved. He gave a little moan of pleasure.

  Carefully, so as not to wake him, she stretched out next to him, laid her head into the crook of his out-flung arm, and nestled against him. Her fingers continued to trace the contours of his face, down his jaw line, across his chin. She wet a forefinger on the underside of her own lip and ran it gently, the barest kiss of a touch, across his mouth.

  She heard the little intake of breath, saw his tongue come out and run across his lower lip. A lightning flash shot through her. She had to touch him—had to. She eased his shirttail out of his jeans and moved a hand lightly up his chest, feeling his nipples harden under the caress.