Rainbow Gap

by Lee Lynch

  “I worry about not being able to get my nursing license for the same reason.”

  “It’s not worth your license, Berry. Or Bat losing his military career.” Jaudon’s tone was uncompromising. “I agree with backing her up, but the woman can hide somewhere else.”

  Berry breathed deeply, hands out, palms up, an unwilling supplicant. “Allison Millar isn’t the point. It’s about government men bossing us around. They decide if we can have abortions after they rape us, they make laws to keep Jaudon and me apart. We’re not out there fighting to protect ourselves, the least we can do is help someone who is, for heaven’s sake.”

  Gran sighed. “Some things about life you can’t change, young ’uns. Men are always the bosses, and they always will be.”

  “Maybe so, Gran, but we should stand up to them.”

  Bat threw the sticky dishrag at her.

  “Bless your heart, pet. You’ll learn. Look at how much room we have here to give someone sanctuary. We can always say we didn’t know she was a renegade.”

  Berry was tickled by the renegade description. “When you meet her, you’ll see Allison’s a reasonable rebel. She’s trying to do some good.”

  They fell silent, as if picturing themselves falling into a renegade life with the best of intentions. Berry thought she might tell Lari, if she visited, to go directly to the trailer and bypass the house. What a mistake it was turning out to be, getting to know other women like themselves—Lari Hand, Allison Millar, and livewire Cullie Culpepper were disrupting their lives. She reminded herself to be grateful for their circle of acquaintances even as she wanted to lock the door against them.

  “Life is as good as your pancakes, Berry,” said Jaudon. “Why risk everything?”

  “Yeah, tell those weak as dishwater feminist types to come at us all they want, Sister,” said Bat with a teasing grin. “We can take it.”

  “You be careful, Bat. Someday you’re going to be answering to a lady general.”

  Bat affected a lisp and a raised pinky. “Oh, yeah, that’s me. Taking orders from the ladies.”

  Jaudon burst out in laughter. “You hush up, Bat. You’ll get us both in hot water.”

  Berry went back to the sink. Jaudon joined her with a dry dish towel.

  “Go on,” Berry told her. “You have to study.”

  Jaudon looked over her shoulder at the table. Gran and Bat might have been lifelong pals the way they were chatting away at the table.

  She kept her voice low. “I’m not going anywhere when you’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad, but I don’t see why you think it’s so funny when Bat puts down our kind of people.”

  “When did he put us down?”

  “The nurse comment and his pinky in the air.”

  “He doesn’t mean anything by it, Berry. You know guys.”

  “Jaudon, he knows what we are to each other. Can’t he be a teensy bit sensitive?”

  “He was making fun of fags, not us.”

  Berry didn’t understand how Jaudon missed the connections between enforced sterilization, keeping women down, and targeting Puerto Ricans.

  For her part, Jaudon didn’t know what bug bit Berry. Why did she hang out with these feminists?

  Gran scraped back her chair and Bat helped her up. She was bulkier than she’d been on Stinky Lane because the kids insisted on doing the heavier housework. “It’s time for my TV shows,” she explained. “You’re welcome to use my trailer for the girl in trouble if y’all want. I believe the Lord would have us give her a place of refuge, a place where she can be innocent until proven guilty.”

  Bat went outside. At the kitchen window, Jaudon and Berry saw him using a machete to cut back the horseshoe of wild growth encroaching on the house. Every visit home he went at the dwarf live oak, the saw palmetto, wax myrtle, swamp dogwood, and the rest of it as if he was clearing a way for his resupply truck through the war zone. Mockingbirds complained at the top of their lungs while blue jays tried to drown everything out.

  “I bet Bat would appreciate Pops’s machete overseas.”

  “Why doesn’t he come home, Jaudon?”

  “He doesn’t say.”

  They looked at each other across the chasm of their differences. Jaudon knew Berry didn’t even hold with fighting the War of Northern Aggression. There were situations when you have to fight. Did Berry want those Communists getting the upper hand?

  “You’re sounding like a hippie peacenik, Berry.” She covered Berry’s hand with her own. “These feminists are changing you.”

  “Not much. I’ve always been for peace. And after living with Eddie Dill, well, there was no mistaking who was in charge, who got what he wanted and took what he wanted.”

  “They’re making you hate men.”

  Berry turned to her with a frown.

  Jaudon reared back, ready for a tongue-lashing.

  “Aside from Eddie Dill,” Berry said, mildly, “no. I hate what some men do to women. I hate their senseless wars. I hate them running everything. The one way a woman gets into office in this country is if her husband dies and they stick her there as a place marker.”

  “Your own gran told us it’s not going to change.”

  “But, Jaudon, imagine if we can make it change.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jaudon didn’t have it in her to deny Berry anything; Allison Millar came to live in the trailer.

  They waited until the weekend after Bat shipped back out to Vietnam. He decided that the Army wasn’t about to accuse any urgently needed soldier of a situation he knew nothing about. In any case, Allison would be gone in a few weeks. It wasn’t safe for her to stay in one place longer.

  Bat always promised to come home once each enlistment was up, but this trip he told Jaudon he looked at the figures and decided it would be better for him to finish out his twenty before working at the Beverage Bays. Jaudon was okay with Bat staying in the service, but in her bedroom, Berry pitched a fit.

  “You’re putting twenty years of work into the Bays when Bat isn’t lifting a finger?”

  “Who’s fighting in Vietnam protecting our country so we can have stores and run them as we please?”

  “Who? They’re emptying out the inner cities and the backwoods to send poor kids to war because they’re giving exemptions to well-heeled white boys. As for protecting our country,” said Berry, “you heard what Bat’s army job is. He loads the mail, food, and materials into his truck and drives. He brags about avoiding combat and hard work. You’re going to let him waltz in and take over the company? Bat will run it into the ground.”

  “You’re so hog-wild about peace, it’s a wonder you’re not glad he’s safer than some of the other soldiers.”

  “He’d be safer if we kept our noses out of other people’s battles. Those folks have no beef with us. You know I believe we don’t have a lick of business fighting over there, getting our boys killed and crippled.”

  “And we’re hiding the Allison woman because we have business in Puerto Rico?”

  Berry was on her high horse. “Our business there is with women. They should be able to have kids if they want.”

  Jaudon was so superheated from agitation she reached up to pull the chain and start the ceiling fan. “They’re not going to have any rights if the Communists win over there.”

  “Don’t be thick, Jaudon.” In nothing flat she regretted using the word thick to sensitive Jaudon and tried to redirect her attention. “You don’t believe such a teensy-weensy country is going to take over America.”

  “If the Commies win there, they’ll be taking over Puerto Rico next. They already have Cuba.”

  Jaudon hated fighting with Berry. They didn’t do it often and this was the worst since her mistake with Lari. Arguing with her was far more upsetting than any subject they found to argue about. She always cried when they fought and she did so now, embarrassing herself.

  “I’m sorry, Jaudon. I pushed Allison on our household. If it bugs you so much, I’ll tell
the group to find someplace else.”

  “It’s not Allison. I know she thinks she’s saving the world, Berry. It’s you. You never cared about war and peace or women versus men. You were my own sweet beautiful Berry. You cared about your gran and me and making a life together.”

  “You’re a business student, Jaudon, and I take care of people. I’m learning so much about how harsh the world is out there—I have to do my bit to make it better.”

  Jaudon spoke through tears, runny nose and all. “Well, I have to do my part to keep the Bays running so I’ll always be able to support us. I can’t have my head in some cloud thinking flower power can right the wrongs of the world.”

  Berry was out of words. Jaudon looked like her heart was broken.

  Jaudon blew her nose into a paper napkin thinking she’d broken Berry’s heart again. She was the first to start a twitchy smile. Berry pressed her lips together, but her eyes were loving. They moved into an embrace without brakes and held tight.

  “I do hate war,” said Jaudon, “and I wish Bat would come home to drive for the company.”

  “I love Bat and your Pops. Pops’s big laughs get me going. Guys are okay when they treat women well.”

  “And I hope Allison doesn’t have to go to jail. She’s a peach when you get down to it.” She squeezed Berry at the waist. “Another Georgia peach.”

  “She claimed she used to be a carefree Southern girl until she got serious about health policy in college.”

  “I guess her family is rich to get her a master’s degree.”

  “Silly,” Berry said, giving Jaudon a soft push with the heel of her hand. “What difference does it make to be from a comfortable family?”

  “You just said it yourself, poor people get sent to war.” She didn’t want to start arguing again. “My real problem is, I don’t know what to expect from you these days.”

  “I don’t know what to expect from myself, Jaudon. My eyes were opened. I can’t close them. You live in a bubble where your momma calls the shots and whoever does the best job gets the work, man or woman—as long as they’re white. The rest of the world is different. Look how few women doctors there are. Wouldn’t it be great if more women like us went to medical school?”

  Jaudon looked pensive. She veered back to their argument. “Do you really think I’m thick?”

  She made a show of wringing her hands. There was no avoiding Jaudon’s thin skin. “Oh, angel, you know I don’t.”

  “If medical school is what you want, we’ll find a way, Berry.”

  “No. I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to open an affordable clinic for women, where they learn about birth control, and where women like us and migrant women and black women are safe.” The image of a childhood friend’s living space was burned into her; she had sad dreams about the crowded, neat room. “I want an all-female staff and women doctors. Learning to doctor takes a big chunk out of a person’s life. I’d be paying back student loans so long I’d never get around to what my heart wants to do.”

  “I’m all for the affordable and safe parts. But who cares about women who want to be with men? That’s their problem.”

  “Exactly what I said, angel. You can’t see outside our bubble. Do you think those migrant mothers want to have a passel of children they can’t house decently? How many of them could afford to live better if they controlled their pregnancies? No one would have to think about tying tubes if birth control was available.”

  Jaudon was determined to keep her voice civil. “What’s wrong with sterilization? There are too many people in the world already. There aren’t enough jobs, people are starving, and they fight with each other to keep whatever they have.”

  “Don’t you see, Jaudon?” Berry gave a gentle stamp of her foot. “If women called the shots, we wouldn’t have so many starving babies. But population control is not taught in nursing school and it’s one of the most important subjects there is. Another one is abortion. Would I have an abortion? No. If I did I might regret it for the rest of my life, but it should be my decision to make.”

  “Jiminy, Berry. Being pregnant would make me feel lower than a snake’s belly in a mud hole. Getting into that state would be worse.”

  “Allison says there are ways to have babies without sleeping with men.”

  “I’m happy with Zefer and Toby. And a talking bird would be nice, one those big bright ones down at the pet store.”

  “I don’t like the thought of caging a bird.”

  “Oh, it would have the run of the house. See why I love you, my Georgia girl? You are the gentlest of creatures. When you’re not mad.”

  “I try not to let you see me mad. I know it scares you.”

  “I try not to get you mad, Berry. I know I don’t always make the smartest moves.” She wrung her hands.

  “Talk like this makes you fidgety.” Berry again ordered Jaudon off to do some studying before her shift started.

  Someone from the group would be by soon with a hot meal for Allison. Berry’s job was to pick up news from Allison’s attorney at a box in the Rainbow Gap post office. The letters came through Allison’s mother in Atlanta. The group decided this many layers would hold off the hunt for Allison until the lawyer did his magic. Allison was a minor miscreant, after all. Berry envisioned her free to return to the West Coast by the end of the month, though she anticipated that Allison would sooner or later come home to the South. Who wouldn’t? In the meantime, Allison and trouble were fated to travel together.

  An unease pervaded the household after Berry’s disagreement with Jaudon.

  A few weeks later Gran asked Berry, “Do you want to move to a trailer park with me, pet?”

  “Goodness gracious, no. Jaudon and I are for life, Gran. I thank you for your kindness, but divorce is not for us.”

  Gran asked Jaudon if she was happy with them there.

  “As long as you and Berry are okay with it, I’m happy as a june bug.”

  “Not everyone is lucky enough to find her true love at such an early age.”

  Jaudon was putting up the living room curtains Gran had washed. Gran handed her another panel.

  “She’s gotten so different, Gran.”

  “Has she? Or has she found new ways of being herself?”

  “I don’t catch your meaning.”

  Gran was quiet for a moment. Jaudon was having trouble holding the brass curtain rings open to attach the fabric. “There’s got to be a better way.” She stretched to her full height atop a red metal stepstool.

  “Look at you, Jaudon. You sold colas out front here before you started school. You manage your own Beverage Bay and you’re studying business so you can take on more responsibilities, more stores. You’re the same Jaudon Vicker, you always go in a straight line. My grandchild follows her spirit, or spirit guide, which leads her on a winding path, through her very own maze. Berry always had the softest heart: for animals, for you and her Gran, for the sick, and since she’s grown, for the whole world. She’s ambitious like you, but in different ways.”

  Jaudon was quiet while she threaded the last panel onto the rod. She backed down the ladder and sat on the wing chair, thinking about what she’d done with Lari and how strong Berry’s attachment to Allison seemed to be. She looked over at Gran, who was on the couch with her sewing kit. She wanted their lives to be smooth sailing, or at least an easy row, but watching Gran made her think again. Was anybody that lucky? Gran lost two husbands so far and she was normal, not shunned by the world.

  She’d enjoy Berry while she had her. But their differences worried her to pieces.

  “I don’t know, Gran. Can Berry and I get too far apart?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Allison was in the trailer much longer than planned. The lawyer explained that her case might not be weighty itself, but it carried implications for the federal government as well as the Puerto Rico law enforcement community. He counseled patience and said he needed to tread carefully.

  Berry and Jaudon were ou
tdoors scraping moss off one side of the house. They’d cleared the roof the week before. It was a balmy winter’s day, palms waving in the breezes, a day made to lure tourists and retirees to the area, and to send the locals outside to do upkeep.

  Lari came up the driveway in her shiny black Cougar. Through the mishmash of palmettos and high weeds bordering the yard, they saw the car was stacked high with grocery bags. Lari slowed as she passed them and gave a lame smile, which Berry saw, as Jaudon continued scraping with a typical doggedness which allowed no interruption.

  This intrusion got Berry’s goat. Never mind the pot, Lari was bound to smoke cigarettes in Gran’s trailer though she’d been told not to. When Cullie visited, they saw she always stepped outside for a cigarette. Berry took a break to sit on a porch step and dab at sweat on her forehead with the clean corner of a rag. She was incensed Lari would think it okay to come on their property. Incensed, but guilty. Allison was the lure and Allison was her fault.

  “I’m sorry, Jaudon.” Her voice sounded very small.

  “About what?”

  “Bringing temptation to our home. Allison and Lari, I mean.”

  Sweat rolled down Jaudon’s cheek, not so much from heat as from how upset she became at a glimpse of Lari’s car out of the corner of her eye. “She’s no temptation to me. Not for nothing, but she’s a pot addict. I wouldn’t be surprised if they smoke pot together.” She mopped her face with the bottom of her T-shirt and dared suggest what was on her mind. “Is Allison a temptation for you?”

  Berry never once thought of Allison as a lover. With a finger pressed to her nose, as if pondering, she teased Jaudon. “She’s okay, for a city girl.” She paused briefly before kissing Jaudon’s cheek. “I love you, my angel. I’m not interested in being Allison’s girlfriend.”

  Jaudon’s quick, “I didn’t think you were,” was unconvincing even to herself. She’d seen Berry’s fascination as Allison told them tales of life on the West Coast, which Jaudon imagined was nothing but a degenerate Florida.