The Novels of Lisa Alther

by Lisa Alther

  “Yes, Anna Lou, fresh flowers is a very lovely touch for your table. Now they’s some that would disagree with this, but I happen to feel like that in winter when you can’t get you no fresh ones, they’s some plastic ones that would almost fool you into thinking they was real …”

  Sally decided to take Jed down to Parkway Department Store on Saturday and let him help her decide. After all, he was going to be eating off them for a lifetime too.

  “… yes, candles. Certainly candles. Candles that match your day-core or your flowers. Now you can light them or not, like you choose. How many yall like to light your candles?”

  Sally raised her hand. Her mother also had a crystal chandelier with a dimmer switch, which was real elegant for dinner parties. She started to suggest this. Suddenly it occurred to her only a few houses on Tsali Street had chandeliers. Why, she wondered. They were a real nice thing to have. She just hoped Jed liked them.

  Emily couldn’t figure out why Miss Melrose always made her chase the balls when they played Softball outside and made her collect the sweaty team halters after basketball. In Hygiene class if Miss Melrose caught them passing notes, it was always Emily she made stay after class and scrub desk tops—even when half a dozen others had been involved. Today, in a burst of energy, Emily had raced out the dressing room door in her shorts and tennis shoes, sprinted as fast as she could down the gym, and run six feet up the tile wall at the far end. As she dropped to her feet, she saw Miss Melrose stalking toward her. Miss Melrose, in her late forties, was unmarried and unhappy-looking. There was a story of a fiancé who’d died in a car wreck/war/of a wasting disease with her at his bedside.

  “Just look at how your tennis shoes have marked up this wall, Emily Prince!”

  Emily studied the wall but could find no marks.

  “Now I think you’d just better plan to come back here after school and wash this wall.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Miss Melrose’s dark unhappy eyes seemed to impale her.

  They did calisthenics. One exercise involved lying on the back and lowering the small of the back to the floor, so as to elevate the hips. Emily felt Miss Melrose’s eyes on her as she diligently performed this.

  In the dressing room afterward, Miss Melrose marched through as she always did, wrenching open stall doors to ascertain that everyone had showered. Emily was bending over shaking her breasts into her bra cups as the door flew open. Miss Melrose glared.

  “Emily, you know you’re supposed to shower unless you have a doctor’s excuse!”

  “Yes ma’am. But I did.”

  “Don’t lie to me, young lady. You’re not even wet!”

  “But I already dried off, Miss Melrose.”

  She reached out and touched Emily’s shoulder with her fingertips. A shiver ran down Emily’s back.

  “I’ll take your word for it this time,” she said in a trembling voice.

  June whispered as the door banged shut, “Somebody said the other day maybe Miss Melrose is a lesbian!”

  “What’s that?”

  June laughed. “God, you’re so naive, Emily. A lesbian is a woman who does it with other women.”

  Emily looked perplexed. “But that’s not even possible. I mean how would they? What would be the point?”

  June shrugged.

  Last-period classes were called off. The boys were sent to study hall, and the girls to the auditorium, where the doors were locked. Miss Melrose got up on stage and announced that Louanne Little’s lace slip had been stolen during fifth-period gym class. “Now one of you ladies right here in this very room took that slip. One way or another we’re going to catch you. You can confess now and save us all a lot of trouble.”

  The room buzzed.

  “All right,” said Miss Melrose. “If this is how you want it, fine. Now Louanne and I are going to stand at the bottom of these steps. One row at a time I want you girls to climb these steps, stop while Louanne examines your slip, then file across the stage and down the other steps and back to your seats.”

  Emily watched the procession. Sally was blushing and giggling and lifting her skirt high enough for Louanne’s inspection. Louanne was looking embarrassed. Miss Melrose was overseeing like a guard dog. Emily went forward. As Louanne okayed her slip, Emily saw Miss Melrose examining her calves.

  Louanne found her slip on Marsha Turner, a girl from Cherokee Shoals who wore ducktails and too much makeup and carried a switchblade in her pocketbook.

  “I could have a slip just like hers, couldn’t I?” she protested, as Miss Melrose ushered her out.

  Some boys from the Audio-Visual Club lowered the movie screen. The lights went out. Miss Melrose’s voice called out, “Thank you so much, boys. Would yall now go on back to study hall please? This here is strictly for girls only.”

  The film was made by the U.S. Army. It featured babies born blind; babbling men in straitjackets; people with hideously swollen arthritic joints, paralysis, deformed noses. The room filled with gasps.

  Sally began running her tongue around the inside of her mouth, searching for sores. She knew it! This was what happened when you had sex. Jed had done it at least once with that horrible Betty French. Everybody knew what those girls from Cherokee Shoals were like. It was awful. Their babies would be born blind with squashed noses. She would tell him this afternoon that they must never do this horrible thing again. Someone was vomiting in back.

  “Miss Melrose!” someone yelled. “Wisteria has just fainted!”

  In study hall almost every boy stood up in unison and ambled into the library, until it was packed. Notes had been passed earlier instructing everyone to do this at exactly 2:57. Coach Clancy pushed up from his desk and rolled across the study hall like a Nazi tank through the heart of Paris. He planted himself in the library doorway and barked, “Now, what the hell do you shitfaces think you’re doing? I want everybody back in their goddam seats in sixty seconds!”

  Hobart, meanwhile, was greasing the podium underneath Coach Clancy’s chair with Crisco.

  The study hall quiet once again, Coach Clancy sat down and leaned his chair back on two legs. It went shooting out from under him. The room rocked with silent laughter. Coach Clancy stood up and looked around defiantly, trying to pretend he’d done a back flip off the podium on purpose, just to show them who was boss.

  Raymond watched with indifference. These stunts had been going on his entire high school career. He used to dream them up and execute them to fight the boredom. Now he no longer participated. Sometimes the others called him a “scab,” but what did he care what a bunch of cretins thought of him?

  Marbles began rolling from one end of the huge room to the other. Coach Clancy was pretending not to notice.

  Raymond gazed across the room. In a few weeks most of the senior boys would be working at the mill, or in the paper plant, or in stores downtown. And where would he be? At the mill, twisting cotton strands and kissing Mr. Prince’s ass as he walked by, having been trained for this all his life. And to make the boredom tolerable, he might throw a cup of water on the man next to him every now and then. He felt like a heel resting on a shoehorn.

  The boy behind him passed a note: “At exactly 3:16, everyone drop your books on the floor.”

  Donny was in the library helping Rochelle set up a display for Negro History Week. They had just taken one down entitled “Our Pilgrim Fathers.” Now they were pinning up pictures of Booker T. Washington and Al Jolson and Joe Louis on the bulletin board. On the shelf underneath were biographies of them.

  Donny toyed with the notion of a biography on himself someday. At games he’d race out onto the court in his lemon yellow satin warm-up suit—long trousers and windbreaker. Someone would shoot him the ball as he loped in toward the goal. He’d leap up and flip it through the hoop, the fingertips of both hands curling over the rim. The stands would holler. The team would go through its routines—elaborate patterns of running men and bouncing balls, breaks toward the goal and passes, feints and handoffs—while the b
and played and the cheerleaders led the crowd in rhythmic clapping. He’d pretend he was playing in New York City for the Knicks. New York. His mother had gone back up there. Without him. He reckoned he missed her, but man, he was glad not to be in no New York City.

  “I just love working here,” Rochelle murmured. “I almost hate it when the afternoon ends, and I got to go back home. It’s so quiet. And clean. And once you get the books in order, they stay that way for a while.”

  “Yeah, there’s usually a lot happening over at your place, all right.”

  “If they’d let me, I think I’d move in here!”

  “You wouldn’t never do that, Rochelle. I know you. You’d miss all them little kids too much.”

  “Try me,” she laughed.

  “I’d like to, but you won’t let me, mama.” He shot her a sly grin. She raised her eyebrows.

  Chapter Seven

  Independence Day

  The Fourth of July was the hundredth birthday of Newland, and a huge parade was staged along the highway through town. All the civic groups and high school clubs had floats. Raymond stood on the street edge of a crowd ten feet deep with his camera poised. The Industrial Development League float was a flatbed truck with a papier-mâché model of the town’s industrial district—smoke stacks and railroad yards and warehouses. At one end stood Mr. Prince in a shirt and tie, smiling and shaking hands interminably with Raymond’s father in dark green work clothes.

  On the County Historical Society float, men in fringed buckskins with long rifles fought a battle behind a log stockade with attacking Indians in warpaint and loincloths. Behind them, in full uniform, with scuffed white bucks and faces scarlet from the heat, staggered the high school band. Their plumes drooped like melting cotton candy, and the braid across their jackets looked like the ribs on Halloween skeleton costumes. From time to time they blared through “Dixie,” or a march medley of “Swanee River” / “Old Black Joe” / “My Old Kentucky Home.” Emily was in the last row with her flute. She kept hopping, trying to get back in step. When the drum major signaled with his whistle and baton an intricate reversal and interweaving of the ranks, Emily didn’t notice and marched straight ahead, screwing everything up. Raymond snapped a picture of her consternation, and doubled over laughing.

  The Civic Club’s float featured half a dozen dentists and insurance salesmen in blackface and orange satin tuxedos. They grinned and cakewalked and shook their tambourines to the noise from the band.

  Sally rode by with the seven other cheerleaders. They wore their letter sweaters, full corduroy skirts, and saddle shoes, and led the crowd in familiar cheers: “Dixie Cup, Seven-Up, pecan pie! / We are the gang from the Newland High! / We don’t smoke, and we don’t chew, / And we don’t go with boys who do …” Four young men, one each dressed in football, basketball, baseball, and track attire and carrying appropriate equipment, stood smiling shoulder to shoulder against the truck cab.

  Then came the Brownie and Cub Scout troops in full regalia, then some prancing horses in elaborate Western tack, ridden by men in either fancy cowboy outfits or Indian buckskins and headdresses.

  The Ingenue float, on a haywagon pulled by a tractor, commemorated the annual Plantation Ball. Several girls in long white dresses lurched around with young men in white sport coats to a scratchy version of “Moon River,” from a hidden record player. Donny stood smiling in a white jacket behind a cut-glass punch bowl.

  Next came the Miss Newland float, featuring last year’s winner and her two runners-up, all in bathing suits. Also Miss Congeniality, less curvy but with a wider smile and a more determined wave.

  The Rod and Gun Club float consisted of two men, one dressed in hunting gear, the other in fishing gear. One held a string of birds, the other a string of fish. They were handing these to two women in aprons who clasped their hands with delight.

  Next came the National Guard, marching in formation with weapons, followed by the most enormous tank Raymond had ever seen. Its gun swiveled, pointing playfully into the crowd as bystanders squealed.

  Raymond dropped his camera. It hung from his neck twisting slowly, its elaborate long-distance lenses projecting like a muzzle. He had spent the morning lying on his bed, studying his photo of the elephant hanging from the crane, surrounded by cheering townspeople. He had just realized he was going to leave this crazy place.

  He and Emily sat in his father’s car at the drive-in that night watching Rock Hudson slogging through the Everglades, trampling wild orchids, evading rattlesnakes and alligators and panthers, and succumbing to yellow fever, while hunting Seminoles. Emily waited with dread for Raymond to pounce and perform the obligatory necking. Instead he started up the car.

  “What are you doing?” Emily protested

  “Leaving.”

  “But we don’t even know what’s going to happen.”

  “I know. Rock Hudson is going to capture Anthony Quinn, I mean Osceola, marry Perry Mason’s secretary, and make Florida safe for tourism.”

  Emily laughed.

  “What really happened is that Osceola was captured when he honored the cavalry’s white flag. They put him in prison. And when he died, the attending physician cut off his head and would hang it in his children’s bedroom when they misbehaved.”

  Emily laughed.

  “It’s true. I read it in a book.”

  “I didn’t know you read books.”

  “There’s lots about me you don’t know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that I’ve decided to take that job in New York City.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I don’t think I belong here. I don’t think you do either.”

  “Leave me out of this. You go if you want, but I’m doing just fine right here.” She couldn’t imagine wanting to go someplace where you didn’t know a soul. But what would it be like here without Raymond’s complaints all the time? She felt a stab of loss. But maybe with him gone someone else would want to date her, someone more acceptable to the Ingenues.

  After the parade, the Ingenues went to a rented cottage at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for their annual week-long Beach Bash. Jed and several other Ingenue dates rented a cottage nearby. The Ingenues spent their days basting themselves with Coppertone, and rolling and unrolling spit curls. The boys threw a football, galloped in the surf, or raced their cars on the hard sand. Sometimes they lay on beach towels beside corpselike girlfriends, peeking at greasy pinkening flesh. At night they tried to bluff their way into nightclubs, rode a Tilt-a-Whirl at the amusement park, or retreated to an oceanside pavilion to dance to a jukebox and drink Coke laced with rum from a bottle in a brown paper bag. Couples would drift off to the dunes.

  Every time they made love, Sally demanded, “Are you sure there’s no way I can get pregnant, Jed?”

  “Sally darlin, just trust me. These rubbers is foolproof. They blow them up on this machine to test for holes before they even send them out.” He’d read this in the folder inside the packets. They were the most expensive brand Anderson’s sold—sheep gut, or some damn thing. Whenever he had to buy some, he’d hang around outside until Mr. Anderson, a golf companion of Mr. Prince, was in back filling a prescription. Then he’d race in, snatch some up, and hurl the money at the assistant

  On the day Sally’s period was scheduled to arrive, it didn’t.

  “God, Jed, what are we going to do?” They sat in the cottage living room. The others were on the beach. She’d told the Ingenues she wasn’t feeling well. They smiled knowingly and said maybe Jed could make her feel better. Actually she needed quick access to the bathroom, where she went every half hour to search her panties for a bloodstain.

  “Girls’ periods are sometimes late for other reasons,” Jed assured her. He’d heard different boys say this. But back in his cottage he read and reread the folder about the testing machine.

  The next day Sally inquired, “What will Daddy say?”

  “He won’t say nothing. He won’t know. You’re
just late is all. Happens all the time. Don’t get all hysterical now.” He was trying to decide if he dared ask Bobby or Hank about this. But it would be bad for Sally’s rep. And it would make him look like a stupid jerk-off.

  On the third day Sally said, “Jed, we’ve sinned. I know it. This is our punishment” It wasn’t fair. If she’d enjoyed it, then she could see how she deserved to be punished. But she only did it to make Jed happy.

  “That ain’t nothing but nonsense, Sally. It ain’t no sin to love somebody.” But actually he was wondering. It didn’t hardly seem fair. If Betty Boobs got in the family way, he could see it might be punishment. Betty was just for fun. But Sally he loved. If Betty Boobs did get in the family way, you’d be home free anyhow because the whole school knew it could of been any of a dozen boys. Sally went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet and pressed toilet paper against herself. It came away bloodless. She buried her face in her hands and promised the Lord she would never screw again if only He’d restore her period.

  Her period arrived that afternoon. She fell to her knees by the toilet, her hands clasped, and thanked the Lord.

  That night at the pavilion Sally and led danced every dance, in shorts and bare feet on the sandy floor.

  “What’s got into you, Tatro?” Bobby asked. “Or should I say, what have you got into?”

  “Glad to see you feeling better, Sally,” smirked Mo, next year’s Ingenue president and head cheerleader.

  Lying on a blanket in the dunes under the full moon, Sally explained they could do everything else, but had to stop screwing. Jed saw her point and agreed to make do with a hand job.

  This arrangement lasted for several days. One night at the pavilion, though, Jed and Sandy Ellis danced together twice. Jed lit three cigarettes for her, and the last time she rested her cigarette hand against his match hand to steady it. Then she raised her eyes to his, over the flame. He was gazing back so intently that the flame burned down to his fingers. He plunged his scorched fingers into her rum and Coke, and she sucked them clean, saying, “We don’t want to waste this good rum, do we?”