“Katie, are you okay?” my mother asked over and over, her cool broad hand feeling my forehead. “I hope you don’t get sick, honey. It’s a holiday.” I wanted to remind her how dramatic things happen on holidays, but the thought was not as funny as it would have been had I been safely shrouded in ignorance. She kept me busy all morning, loading and unloading our station wagon, and all the while I watched the cemetery and Merle’s house for any movement that would send me running into my house to hide. There was a Christmas tree propped against the side of his house that I not seen the night before. I could see the tip top branches of the magnolia tree, the overgrown path I had taken, benign enough in the daylight.
“Katie, come see,” my mother called, and I grabbed the last grocery bag and slammed the tailgate before she called attention to me there in the middle of the driveway. She met me in the doorway, a huge pink poinsettia in her arms. “Look what was delivered while we were gone,” she said. “Read this.” She thrust a note forward and I looked first to see the signature—Angela. This is my formal apology for all the times I have let you down. You have been like a mother, a sister, a very dear friend and I hope that you will give me another chance.
“That’s what I needed to hear,” she said. “It’s her handwriting, too.” She carefully placed the card beside the flower. “I mean, I am probably going to get a bill for that poinsettia, I know that, but she did write this.” She was in an unusually good mood after that, though I couldn’t help but be suspicious when my father returned from his shopping with nothing whatsoever to show for it.
“I don’t know what you said this time,” my mother told him when he came into the kitchen. “But you may have finally gotten through.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said, and sat down to wait for lunch, lit a cigarette. “Must have been an elf. Must be the Christmas spirit.” I looked out the window to see Merle Hucks lifting the tree and carrying it around to the back door, his little sister running along beside him.
My mother worked twice as hard that day, making everything, decorations and food, look like something out of a magazine. She had searched all over Fulton in the crowded supermarkets for exotic fruits to dip and swirl in chocolate sauce. It was mid-afternoon when she headed out once more to the one store she hadn’t visited in search of kiwis and mangos. I went outside, fully intending to go over to Misty’s and unload the whole horrible story, but taking my time. She was going to be upset that Dexter and R.W. were no longer boyfriend choices, but more so that I had gone without her. She would say that I had betrayed her, or even if she didn’t say it, would certainly think it. Or worse, she would say, Why didn’t you do something, Kate? Why did you just sit there and watch? The phone rang, and though I yelled for my dad to pick it up, it kept ringing and ringing. Judy Garland’s voice came from his study as I ran through the hall to answer.
“May I speak to Kate Burns?” It was a boy, the voice deep and slow. I took a deep breath, sat in the ornate Victorian chair, the throne we’d always called it, by the telephone table.
“This is she,” I said, carefully choosing the pronoun my mother had spent years drilling into me, and then there was silence. “I’m Kate,” I added, fearing the worst, a prank call, a broken connection.
“This is Merle.” Another pause. “You know, Hucks.”
“Yes.” I stared across the hall, where my mother had Blue Boy and Pinky hung side by side, an arrangement of pink silk flowers on the table below. “Hi.”
“Hey. I was wondering if we could talk.” He stopped again. There were background noises, pots clanging and what sounded like classical music, though I couldn’t imagine that being true. I knew that he had seen me running across the yard; that’s what he wanted to talk about. I used my other hand to hold the receiver steady. There was music in the background, Beethoven’s 9th, Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I think I know and I’m ...”
“Not on the phone, though,” he said hurriedly. “Hold on.” He put the phone down and I could hear muffled voices, his hand over the mouthpiece, I was sure. “Look, you know the little house in the cemetery where the gardener keeps his junk?”
“Yes,” I said, about to add but, the thought of being in the cemetery sending a rush over me.
“Be there in thirty minutes.” Then the connection broke and I sat there just holding the receiver and listening to the buzz. Blue Boy and Pinky had always depressed me, and they had no different effect right then. I had to think through everything, how to get there without Misty or anyone else seeing me. And then there was the worst, what was he going to do with me when I got there. I imagined Merle waiting, Dexter and R.W. behind him, a knife in his open palm, slapping, slapping.
Like my mother, my father was also a bit out of his regular groove with the holiday and the knowledge that Angela was coming. He had already cracked open a bottle of brandy and was smoking great big smelly cigars like the ones Mr. Tom Clayton used to simultaneously smoke and chew until the two ends met. He had been working on a memory piece about Mr. Clayton and said that he wanted to use what I had told about the peeing Confederate statue. All of a sudden, he stopped Judy right in the middle of “What’ll I Do?” and put on my mother’s Bing Crosby record. Have yourself a merry little Chirstmas. He was in there singing along, wrapping paper rustling as he wrapped whatever surprises he did have stashed.
I called Misty to kill time and to make up a reason why I wasn’t coming over, but she was in a rush, said that she’d have to call me later, that she had to do some shopping for her dad. “Sally Jean has her heart set on these really eloquent pajamas that are in the window of Ivey’s,” Misty whispered. “Just what we need, another speaker in the house.”
It had been twenty minutes, so without saying anything to my father, and checking to make sure my mother had not just that minute pulled up, I went out the back door, looked back and forth—no Misty or Dean or Sally Jean. Then I ran into the cemetery. I got to the little house, no bigger than a child’s playhouse, and waited. I had only ventured in this direction a couple of other times, once with Misty on one of our dares and once with my father when he came to rub an etching of a nearby headstone where the poor man had listed every single detail of his life. My father thought it was hilarious; my mother thought it was very sad.
Thick fuzzy moss covered the ground around the house; the vines were thicker, trees taller than when I’d been there before. I was looking around for that tombstone when I heard the bushes moving behind me. I turned suddenly and he was right there, not more than three feet away.
“Hey,” he whispered. He leaned against the little house and slowly slid down until he was sitting, back pressed against it. He had a plastic bag with two wrapped gifts inside and he put it down beside him. “I know you saw last night.” He looked up then, not a trace of the anger that I had expected to see. “I didn’t have a whole lot to do under that tree except look up.” His right eye and cheek were swollen and bruised. “Did you tell anybody?” I shook my head, leaned against a big pine tree, my palms pressed into the rough sticky bark.
“Good.” He sighed, stretched his legs out. “Promise me you won’t?” He stared, waiting for my answer. “Even Misty. I know you guys are best friends and I like her, she’s okay. I just don’t want anyone knowing.”
“Okay.” I slid down just as he had done and sat on the damp mossy ground. “I guess your brother would really be in big trouble if people found out.” I looked off towards the sound of the highway, heard the whoosh of cars traveling north to south and south to north, all passing us by without a thought. “R.W., too.”
“I couldn’t care less about what happens to Dexter,” he said, jaw clenched. “Or R.W. They can rot in hell for all I care.”
“Oh.” I felt my own face get hot with his anger, with my misunderstanding of what he meant.
“I just would rather nobody knows.” He leaned forward, pulled his knees up, arms hugging them. “I mean, that’s all Perry needs, right
?” He stared at me again, watched as I sat braiding a piece of pine straw. “You know this gets out and every bastard in the school will be after her, people like that jerk-off Todd and his friend from Greensboro.” He paused, teeth clenched again. “You know all those people you run around with. You know what they’d say and do.”
I was stunned. The pine straw was motionless in my hand as I looked towards the highway. He was saying the same thing that Perry had said in the bathroom the year before; he was lumping me in with all of them, the group Misty and I had wanted to be a part of but had always remained on the fringe.
“They’re not my friends,” I said, and tossed the straw to the side. “And I won’t tell, I promise.” I stood to go, brushed off the seat of my jeans and was heading back to the path when he stood, too, jumped in front of me.
“Why were you in that tree?” he asked. I shrugged, looked down first at my feet, tan Wallabies darkened by the damp ground, and then his, the same style Converse he had worn for years. “What were you expecting to see?” He bent down, trying to get me to look at him. “Thought maybe you’d see some fancy velvet drapes and wallpaper?” I shook my head. “What then? What were you looking for?” He stepped closer. “Did you see what you wanted to see?”
“No!” I looked up, swallowed hard to keep from crying.
“Why then?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged again, looked away. “I guess I was curious.”
“About what?” His plastic bag with his gifts was still on the ground, one of the tags visible. At first I thought it said from Merle, but now I saw that it was to him. To Merle from the Lan-dells. That explained the classical music; he had called me from Mrs. Poole’s house. “About what?” he asked again and stepped closer.
“You.” I felt like it took forever to get the word out of my mouth, and then it fell solid and heavy. He stepped back, bent to pick up his bag, and then stood there, his breath visible as he stared out at the irregular pattern of granite. All the possibilities suddenly came rushing in. He could turn and run away without ever looking back, or he could clear his throat and spit on the mossy ground, or he could hold his sides and laugh and laugh. But he just stood there, the bag swinging as he rocked from side to side. “You were curious about me?” He looked at me, put his hand to his chest. In the distance I could hear the cars, could hear Christmas music and horns blowing. In less than two hours Angela would be in our house, turning the holiday into a holiday just by making it four instead of three of us sitting down to eat. He stepped closer, silendy on the moss, and then suddenly leaned forward, his lips pressing mine for an awkward split second. Then there was a long pause as we both stared in the direction of the highway.
“Sorry, forgot you had a boyfriend,” he finally said and stepped away, tilted his head in the direction of Misty’s house.
“But I don’t,” I said and watched him kick the bottom of the shed door to loosen it. “Misty just likes to tell people that.” I breathed in, smelling the woodsmoke and pine in the cold air. My hands were shaking so I stuck them in my pockets. “What you did for Misty the other day, the way you stood up for her was real nice,” I said, and stepped towards him. “Except that now she thinks your brother is cute.”
“She can do better than Dexter.” He pulled on the rusty handle and the door swung open. “So can Perry.” There was a softness in the way he said her name, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever been with her, in a different way, a tender way.
“I hope she’s okay,” I said as he squatted and peered into the dark shed where there was a rusty shovel and old black tarp.
“Says she is. I called her.” He pushed the door to and stood, stared straight up into those thick pine branches. “She said she knew about it all, that she was supposed to act scared was all.” He shook his head. “Says Dexter and her are gonna get married. He’s giving her a pre-engagement ring for Christmas.” He laughed sarcastically and looked at me then, shrugged a sigh of helplessness. “If he does, it’s stolen.”
“She knew?” I asked in disbelief, and he turned towards me.
“No, no way. She’s lying,” he said. “She’s scared as hell of him.” He reached out, fingers locking around my wrists, squeezing as he spoke. “She’s not that kind of girl any more than you are,” he said, squeezing still harder when he said you. “How would you feel if they had done that to you.” He shook me with each word. “Think about it.” I looked down when I felt the tears coming to my eyes. His knuckles were white as he squeezed me, my own fists clenched and pressing against his stomach. And then he released his grip, rubbed his open palms up and down my sleeves, barely touching. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really.”
I wondered what we must look like. I saw an aerial view of Merle reaching out stiffly to hug me, our heads pressing together as we rocked back and forth like in a slow dance. His wool plaid jacket was rough on my cheek, my mouth just an inch from his neck, the same neck that had once been wrapped in snakeskins and dirty rawhide-strung ratfinks. The house next door to his began cranking up the music, and though above us we could see patches of the afternoon sky, within the thickly wooded space where we stood it was like dusk. Hark the herald angels sing. In the distance horns were blowing as people drove home from work, and very soon the local radio station would begin announcing where Santa Claus had been spotted and his predicted arrival into the Fulton city limits. And late that night when I got into bed, I would think through the whole meeting, second by second, every single word and look and touch, and if Angela should creep into my room after midnight to tell her latest stories, then maybe I would surprise her, finally, with one of my own.
Twenty-one
Angela called at the time she was supposed to arrive to say that she was running late. “Oh, Kitty,” she said, lots of background noise making it hard to hear all she said, “I’m so sorry that I can’t get there for dinner, but something really important is going on. I can’t wait to tell you all about it. I can’t wait to see all of you. Wait a sec ...” I heard her put the phone down, and then there were just muffled voices and music. Through the doorway I could see my mother in her green knit dress and matching pumps as she lit the red tapers in the center of the table; she was using her fine china, white with a gold band around the edge, and the Waterford crystal that she kept on the very top shelf of the china cabinet. She had put down her best linen tablecloth and the matching napkins, which she had somewhere along the way learned to fold like swans. “I’ve always had a soft spot for swans,” she had said many times. “They always remind me of the Public Gardens and growing up in Boston.” It made me ache to watch her, knowing that in five minutes when I told her that Angela wouldn’t make dinner, she would stiffen and bristle and say that she wasn’t surprised. Of course she can’t make it. What kind of fool was I to think she would?
“Kitty, I’m back.” Angela laughed, her breath short and quick as if she’d just run around the block. “I’ll be there around eleven, okay? It’ll still be Christmas Eve, right?” She paused, waiting for me to say something.
“Please don’t do this.” Now I could see through the dining room and into the kitchen, where the big turkey, its legs crossed and tied, was golden brown in the roasting pan as my mother basted it again in butter and then left it on the top of the stove while she went back to her Waldorf salad. “Try to get here sooner. For dinner.”
“Well.” She paused. “You’re afraid that Cleva will fly off the handle if I’m not there, is that it?” I didn’t say anything. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Well”—her voice fell—“hold on.” Again I could hear voices and music as I waited. “I’m on my way,” she said. “I sure don’t want the burden of you and Fred having a lousy Christmas.” She paused. “See you soon,” and then she hung up before I could say good-bye.
“Kate?” Mama was standing there, cheeks flushed with the heat of the kitchen. “Who is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I hung up the phone.
“Angela isn’t coming, i
s she?” She stood there, a red-and-green oven mitt covering her hand and arm like a cast, and stared around the room, past the flickering tapers and cut holly centerpiece, as if she were disoriented and didn’t know where to go or what to do.
“No, she is,” I said, and followed her back into the kitchen. “She’s just running a little late, that’s all.”
“Why the long face?” My father came in from the back porch, where he had said that Mama was, under no circumstances, to go. As a surprise he was going to have a greenhouse built for her and had built a little model of one to present to her on Christmas morning. He had borrowed tongue depressers from Sally Jean, who got them at the hospital, patiently glued the frame, and then wrapped it all in Saran Wrap; there was an African violet and a zebra plant from the florist inside. My mother had no idea what he was planning. “C’mon. It’s Christmas Eve.” He squeezed her hand. “Why did Theresa Poole throw the clock out the window?”
“Angela’s running late.” Mama sighed and went back to the sink. “That means she probably isn’t coming at all.”
“Yes, she is,” I said. “She was leaving right that minute.”
“We’ll see.” Mama was scooping the oyster dressing from the turkey and putting it in a big bowl. “I hope Sally Jean’s meal turns out okay. She has Thomas’s sister and husband visiting for the first time since . . .” Her voice fell off. My mother had stopped mentioning Mo, a loyalty to Sally Jean making her want to forget.
“I do, too.” I went to sit on the counter by the sink where I could see Merle’s house. I still could not believe what had happened that very afternoon; it made the blood rush to my head just to think about it, the way he had leaned in, his lips brushing mine. It was not even a second and yet, when I thought about it, it was like slow motion.
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