I slid the icepack down and dropped it beside me. “Fine. You?”
We chatted about matters not so important. I answered him politely and then fell silent when he said he was going upstairs to bed. Not a word passed between us about the awful things coming down around our ears. He said nothing about leaving Vesta. I said nothing about nearly getting creamed tonight by the Billings boys. Vesta would blame my associations.
I kissed him good-night and then followed him upstairs turning off the lights behind us. I tried hard not to act shaken, although I was still a bit shaky. As I slipped into bed, I felt a strange kind of sadness. Not that my father had intentionally offended me, but because he would not trust me with the truth. Even Vesta had the guts to admit they had gotten into a fight.
Sometime around midnight I woke up, laying there for two hours, staring through the window at the stars. It came to me that I was trying too hard to guard my dreamtime, not letting my heart go off to the far-away green hill. Maybe that was why I startled awake. Or else I sensed restlessness all throughout the house. But I heard a stirring outside, so I came onto my belly and then finally got up and looked down into the back yard, stretched out opaque as tarpaper in the middle of the night. I walked to my window and looked out. The Millers house was dark and locked up for the night.
A still figure moved out of the shadows walking across the lawn, the sheen of moon reflected in his hair. I gasped and got partly mad again, thinking Clay or Wade might be stupid enough to return. But then I saw Daddy take the steps up onto the porch below and disappear.
He had always been the brooding type. I imagined him seated in the Story Chair, the women laying their hands upon him, how he would weep and then stand, his burdens falling off him while he stepped out bright and new, like new skin beneath the old.
I wanted to tell him I knew of people who stood up to their fears and stared them down, like Ratonda staring down Wade and Clay. I wished I could tell him how doing that made me realize that there was nothing so large as to gobble up every inch of life. Yet I had no proof of it, not since the accident had swallowed all of us whole.
I joined him from a distance, staring out across the back yard into the dark, feeling lost with him.
* * * * *
The next morning Billy dropped me off down at the dock where we found Dwight Johnson gassing up his boat for the day. Dwight Johnson was a composed but affable sort whose risky ventures had brought him colossal wealth.
Irene waved at me from her perch on the ski boat seated in the passenger seat behind the windshield and next to Dwight who drove. She wore an orange swimsuit under a bright yellow blouse that Claudia whispered turned her skin sallow, but not so her mother could hear.
I learned to ski with the Johnsons the prior summer when they had gotten the boat in a trade from a client who could not pay a final bill he owed Mr. Johnson. I untied the boat and jumped into the seat at the bow next to Claudia. Claudia pointed out that she had tied on the inner tubes rather than ski ropes. She had nearly broken her leg attempting to slalom the last time out and, turning cowardly, gave up trying.
She was more bad-tempered than usual. Mr. Johnson asked her more than once to pull out two life vests for the two of us. She ignored him, stretched out on the seat aft the bow and in front of her father who sat in the captain’s chair. Finally I held onto the windshield for balance where I lifted my seat and pulled out two vests.
Mr. Johnson dropped anchor in the deepest part of the lake and told us two girls to haul butts and tie on our life jackets. We threw off our t-shirts and checked each other’s bikini straps. I first tied on my preserver and then helped Claudia manage hers. She hurled the tubes out into the water and then leaped off the back squealing when she smacked the cold lake water. I jumped in behind her, kicking furiously to pass her up and be the first at the end of our tie lines. She aimed her tube back toward the boat and then clambered on, stretched out on her stomach.
A yacht full of teen boys set down on the horn, waving at us girls. The attention sent Claudia into dramatic spasms. “I know that guy. His father’s a stock broker,” she said. “Mother says he drives his daddy’s boat like a maniac. He’s good looking. Don’t you think he looks like Drake, the boy we met in Wilmington?”
I winced but refrained from spilling my guts out here in the middle of the lake. It would be like her to run into Marcy and blurt out all I had witnessed outside the Village Inn.
“At least the boys spotted us,” I said, more interested in preparing my tube for the ride. “They’ll not run us over.”
Mr. Johnson dragged us across the lake at such a high rate of speed my tube went airborne several times, pounding against the wake generated while we were cutting westward. I closed my eyes, not in the least screaming as Claudia liked to do. The boys continued to ogle us not many knots away.
After an hour of pounding the water, I gave Mr. Johnson the thumb’s down signal, meaning I was ready be picked up.
“Oh, good,” said Claudia. “I’m exhausted and hungry.” She glared at her father when the boat stopped and the two of us paddled back to climb in.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
I hated when Claudia was put out with either of her folks for the simple fact she was spoiled. We had fought over it the week before. Claudia had called me a turncoat for siding with her parents, and what kind of friend did that anyway? She whined that she felt like a prisoner in her own house. She had not suffered the pain endured under a broken marriage and, therefore, had no appreciation for the way Irene and Dwight Johnson doted on her. Besides all that, I was in no position now to share my own concerns about what was going on between Vesta and Daddy, not with Claudia being so surly. I was even madder at her for I had spent many a night listening to her complaining about her “horrid life.” Here she was bound up in her own insulated circumstances, sulking at just the moment when I needed a sympathetic ear. Thanks to Claudia’s self-centeredness, I could never confess a blessed thing.
“What happened to your shoulder? Is that a bruise?” she asked.
“Like you care,” I said, with no degree of emotion.
Mr. Johnson gave us a hand up the ladder. “You’re a couple of tadpoles, aren’t you?”
“It was great,” I said before Claudia could snap at him. “I love how you aren’t afraid to speed, Mr. Johnson.”
By evening, and in spite of coating my body in tanning lotion, my skin was red, burnt to a crisp. I slid into a loose white blouse and pedal pushers. I had no more than stepped foot out the back kitchen door when Vesta said, “Look at that bruise. I knew you’d get hurt on those skis. By the way, you stay close and let me know if you take off somewhere. You’ve gotten the wanderlust in you of late.” Perhaps she was aware I had been at the Miller’s the night before.
“I’m just resting out on the porch,” I said, defensive and resenting how Vesta was increasingly suspicious and haunting my every move.
We played cat-and-mouse until I finally went upstairs. “I’m eating supper in my room,” I shouted down the staircase and then shut my door with a slam. I plopped down on my bed, hissing when my sunburned back hit the bed. I finally understood a bit of what Claudia had meant about feeling like you could both be at home and in prison all at once. I would gladly trade Claudia’s jailer for mine though.
The telephone rang so I picked up the extension expecting Claudia to call and complain about her pitiful life. To my surprise it was Billy.
* * * * *
Billy asked if I could go out for ice creams. Most of his buddies must have been unavailable for I was the one he called. He drove us into the Twistee Treat parking lot, an ice cream parlor that served cold, soft serve ice cream, but only through a take-out window. A bug light hanging three feet out from the take-out window glowed innocuously pale lavender until a mosquito, lured into the light, disintegrated in its coils. I was surprised to see a familiar black Pontiac parked in the lot facing us. I rolled
down my window and waved at Ratonda but she didn’t see me. I could hear her though, arguing, to my surprise, with her husband’s cousin, Calvin. They both stood outside the car, doors ajar. They argued over the top of the car roof.
“Fine. I’ll place the order, but you help me carry it all back. That’s why I asked you along, after all,” he told her.
I looked around and did not see any of my other friends. A small boy hung out the rear window of his mother’s Ford pointing with glee whenever a bug hit the light and buzzed like an electric chair.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking you,” said Billy. “But something’s been on my mind.”
It had not occurred to me that Billy wanted to talk. He was not the kind of guy with whom I engaged in long conversations. “Sure,” I said.
“This is about our time at Wrightsville Beach,” he said.
His words caught me by surprise. He surely could not remember my kissing him. Nothing came out of me. I was frozen. Then he leaned toward his open window. His brows lifted as his attention was drawn by the black couple arguing a few feet out from the hood of his car.
“Calvin, why you want to be like this?” Ratonda asked. “Go park out back. I’m too tired for trouble.”
Calvin was apparently out on bail and looking for a new place to protest. Theo had not said a word to me about his arrest. The fact was, I was so gratefully relieved at the diversion, I feigned an interest in the feud brewing in front of us. “I know them,” I said casually. “They’re all right. They’re related.” I recalled a photograph of Calvin, framed and placed among the other pictures clustered on Dorothea Miller’s mantel. He was such a slight baby, thin armed, those two large eyes staring out from an old blanket. His arms were flung open as if he were begging someone to rescue him from the woman who had birthed him. He and his sister Baby Soomy had to be reared by their grandmother on the Hildebrand side, best I could recall. He was obviously a scrapper of a young man, though. For here he sat tonight with that same sinewy, needy hand reaching out to Ratonda, tapping the car top, and insisting she let him do things his way.
“It’s only ice cream,” said Ratonda, but he would not relent. He was dead-set fierce about parking in the whites-only parking lot. It was like her to shelter him from another incident. She finally surrendered, climbing back inside her car. She closed the door and gunned the engine while Calvin grinned. He marched away counting out the bills for their ice cream order.
Ratonda slipped down behind the steering wheel. She still had not noticed me. No one noticed her except Billy and me.
A carload of customers was caught up in yelling at their kids. One couple was making out. A group of college boys parked next to us laughed and snorted, passing around a dirty magazine. No one paid any mind to Calvin ambling up to the take-out window. I was relieved for Ratonda’s sake.
Then I was doubly relieved when a black boy appeared at the take-out window. He must have known Calvin for he joked around with him. Finally Calvin placed their order.
I told Billy, “I’ll have a hot fudge sundae, nuts, whipping cream and all.” I handed him my money, but he wouldn’t take it. I closed my eyes and relaxed, the electric bug light becoming a pleasant rhythm in the night air.
“I’ll place our orders. Then I want to ask you something,” he said.
I kept my eyes closed in order to appear calm, but especially, oblivious.
“Hey, you, nigra girl!” The voice came from the car parked to the right of us. The top was rising on the youth’s white convertible. He came up from behind his steering wheel, pointing at Ratonda.
The five white students packed in the Plymouth Fury still seemed caught up in the magazine, all but the driver in the front passenger seat demanding Ratonda’s attention. She turned her attention away, ignoring him. But he would not shut that big mouth of his.
“Is that your colored boyfriend?” he asked her in an accusing tone. “At the whites-only window?”
I lifted out of my seat looking up at the order window. I said through the open window, “There’s no sign saying anything of the sort.”
Billy stared at me, wide-eyed.
“Who are you anyway to be asking me?” Ratonda asked him, peering over her steering wheel.
“I’m saying it, that’s enough,” the guy with the blond hair said, smirking at Ratonda.
“No, but it’s not your business,” said Ratonda, not at all acting afraid.
“It’s my business because I make it mine,” he said. His door came open, the hinges in need of oil for they creaked harshly for lack of grease.
Calvin was now leaning against the concrete posts in front of the take-out window. If he turned and saw Ratonda was in trouble, he would come at this boy with both fists, didn’t I know.
“Say, I know you,” said the white youth.
“Let’s just forget this,” said Ratonda.
“You was the colored girl pulling a gun on me and my brother.” His voice turned quickly from mocking to hostile.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Billy, we have to do something.” That was why he looked so familiar. “Those Billings’ boys got it in for Ratonda and me.”
“It would have been nice to know sooner,” said Billy.
The boys were already piling out of the Fury whooping and strutting like barnyard cocks.
Ratonda slammed down her door lock and rolled up her window fast. She reached across to the passenger window and quickly locked that door.
“Here comes trouble,” said Billy. “Flan, please stay in the car.”
“What’ll you do?” I asked.
He got out of the car.
“Billy,” I said. “I know her. She’s my friend. Wade Billings, he’ll kill her.”
He let out a sigh. “Then I guess she’s my friend too.”
Wade led his intolerant pack, the whole lot of them, clambering over the center island between our car and Ratonda’s.
Billy’s trunk came up and then closed with a thud.
Ratonda was already locking the doors, so Wade lunged for the back door. He turned in such a way that I could finally see his ugly face. I seethed at the sight of him. I slowly opened my door.
Wade threw open Ratonda’s back door and then unlocked her front door. The white youths piled into her backseat, laughing wildly while idiot Clay yanked open her front door. He lunged for her until his head got jerked back by his oily yellow hair.
A scream rose up so piercing I thought it was coming from my own throat. It was Clay, though. Billy laid him flat on the ground, thrusting a tire iron into his fat gut.
Being as how it was Ratonda’s only opportunity to run, she jumped out of her car now filling up with the white students. We made eye contact as I ran toward her.
Not happy seeing his brother knocked to the ground, Wade lunged at Billy.
Billy shoved him backward, yelling, “Get out of here, punk!”
I threw my arms protectively around Ratonda and we held onto each other.
Calvin finally turned upon hearing a commotion. That was when he ran at Wade and the others.
Before the boys could gang up on Billy, he yelled at them, swinging his tire iron at them. “Get out of here, Wade, and the rest of you! I know your daddies and they’ll all get a call from me tonight.”
Calvin came up behind Billy. He wielded a big wrench and shook it at them menacingly.
The youths clambered back into the Fury and then peeled out of the parking lot, gravel showering the paint jobs of the other parked cars. Wade hollered one last threat out his window before disappearing down the road. “You’ll pay, nigra lovers!”
I could barely speak, but managed to say, “I’m so glad we decided to come out late tonight.”
Ratonda wiped her eyes with the tail of her blouse, but managed to thank Billy, now standing beside me. “Do I know you?” she asked him.
“This is Billy Thornton,” I said, introducing them. “He was my dance teacher.” Billy smiled at me, and then I said, “A long time ago.”
* * * * *
I decided it was best to return with Ratonda and Calvin. I thanked Billy. I felt I should catch a ride home for convenience, but also for Ratonda’s sake. Ratonda needed a female along. That, and I didn’t want to risk Billy confronting me about what happened on Wrightsville Beach.
Once we arrived back at the Millers, I sat cross-legged in the blue chair with my sundae. It came to me that I was sitting in the Story Chair. Reverend Theo would say nothing to me about taking a turn at a story tonight, not since we had come back with an awful story about being rescued from the brink of death at the Twistee Treat.
Calvin listened while Ratonda paced in a tirade. “It’s bad enough we can’t order a burger at a diner, now they running us off from the ice cream window.” Finally Dorothea ushered her off into their bedroom so her little girls would not be afraid.
Calvin assisted me as we passed out the ice creams from cardboard holders. Billy would not let us leave, as he put it, “without the goods.”
“Who is this Billy?” asked Calvin.
“A friend,” I said.
“He your boyfriend?”
“No. Dance teacher.”
“Don’t act like no dancer to me,” said Calvin.
“Billy’s not afraid of anything. I wish I could be like him.”
“You are.”
“He is sure a good one to have around when you’re scared,” I said, giving credit where it was due.
Calvin told Ratonda’s girls, “Come get your ice creams, alley rats.” He gave them their cones and took them inside.
Reverend Theo whispered to Calvin, “She’ll be fine.”
I was still waiting for my heart to stop pounding, but as usual, Reverend Theo had a knack for knowing just what was needed. He sat there for what seemed like a whole half hour saying nothing. I finally felt my shoulders relax when he spoke.
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