Bound South

by Susan Rebecca White

  I put the key into the ignition and turn the Lexus on, not to start driving but to get the air conditioning going. It’s only May and already it is hot.

  Caroline starts crying. “Oh my God. I feel so bad for Frederick. He’s going to be fired. Because of me. They are going to fire him and they are going to make sure he never teaches anywhere else. I know it.”

  It probably wouldn’t be a bad thing if Frederick found another career besides teaching. Teaching has never seemed to me to be a viable career option for a man. I mean, I hate to sound sexist, but I don’t see how a teacher’s income could ever be considered anything but supplemental.

  “Did they actually catch you in the act of making love?” I ask.

  She gives me a look of utter scorn, the mascara smudged beneath her eyes. “No, Mom, we weren’t ‘making love.’”

  I ignore her sarcasm, for now.

  “Were genitals involved?”

  “Oh my God, I can’t talk about this with you. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  Whoosh. There goes my patience.

  “Darling, if you didn’t want to talk with me about such intimate things, you shouldn’t have been doing whatever it was you were doing with Frederick in a public place. I’m not asking about your private life out of personal curiosity, I assure you. What you do in your bedroom is your own business, but when you take it out of the bedroom, well, it becomes a lot of other people’s business, whether we want it to be ours or not. I wish things were different, but you are in a lot of trouble with the school and if you want me to help you best navigate your way through it, you need to tell me exactly what happened.”

  I soften a little. “There is nothing new under the sun, sweetheart. You aren’t going to shock me by telling me about whatever you were doing with Frederick.”

  She says something so softly I can’t make out the words.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I was going down on him. They walked in on me while I was going down on him.”

  “Does that mean you were giving him a blowjob?” I ask, wanting to make sure I completely understand what happened.

  Poor Caroline. Her face is bright red she is so embarrassed.

  “God, Mom. You’re not supposed to know that word.”

  I laugh. As if the whole world wasn’t talking about blowjobs after that trashy woman was caught giving one to President Clinton. As if Tiny doesn’t tell me how she uses them to help persuade Anders every time she wants a new piece of jewelry.

  “This is such a nightmare,” she says. “It was my English teacher, Mr. Lyons; he was the one who walked in on us.”

  “He’s young, right? African American? The one who was a Jefferson scholar at UVA?”

  Caroline nods. I am wondering if there is any way to get Mr. Lyons to keep quiet about the whole thing. After all, he and Frederick can’t be that far apart agewise. Maybe they are friends. Then again, they can’t be too close if Dean Brown was already informed.

  “Did Mr. Lyons go straight to Miss Brown?” I ask.

  Caroline lets out a huge sigh. “It’s worse than that, Mom. It’s much worse. He was giving an admissions tour. There were at least six potential Coventry students with him. I mean, I’ve never heard of them including the green room as part of the tour. No one has ever walked in on us there before.”

  Oh dear Lord.

  This is much worse than I realized.

  All those eyes—those young eyes, those young potential tuition-paying eyes—on my daughter. Oh dear. I feel a heavy weight settling on my chest. They are going to let Frederick and Caroline hang for this. What choice does the school have with so many witnesses?

  “How many people saw you?” I ask. “You said six students were on the tour? Were they all in the green room when you were caught?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. It’s all kind of a blur.”

  She’s crying, lost in her grief, and I don’t think she’s acting. And suddenly, it all seems like too much, too much for her to have to go through at so young an age. I reach out my arms and she grabs onto me.

  “WELL I JUST think we should have Frederick over so that we can all talk about it as a family,” I say. “I mean we knew the situation all along. It’s not like just because they were caught he’s now a pariah.”

  “I didn’t know the situation, Louise. For God’s sake, do you think I would have given approval to my little girl having sex with a grown teacher?”

  “Oh, don’t act so innocent. You knew they were seeing each other.”

  We are in the sunporch with the door closed. Caroline is up in her room, where she has stayed ever since I drove her home from school. John Henry stands from his lounge chair to walk to the liquor cabinet.

  “I thought he was helping her with her acting!” he says, reaching for an old-fashioned glass and the bottle of Knob Creek bourbon. He pours himself at least four fingers of the stuff and takes a long swallow.

  “Don’t you try to get out of this by getting drunk,” I say.

  “Louise, today my daughter was caught at my alma mater performing fellatio on one of her teachers. I think I deserve a drink. Frankly, I think I deserve to drink as much as I goddamn please.”

  The man has a point.

  “Well, pour me one, then,” I say.

  He gets out another of the old-fashioned glasses (a wedding gift to us from my parents, so many years ago) and pours me two fingers of bourbon, neat. He walks to where I sit on the sofa and hands it to me.

  “Cheers,” he says, clinking his glass against mine. “To a second generation of Parker family scandal.”

  I smile. John Henry always makes jokes in grim situations. He was his funniest self the first few months after his twin brother, Wallace, shot himself in the head.

  “Look,” I say. “We need to focus on making sure that Caroline graduates and goes to Juilliard and that Coventry doesn’t lynch Frederick just for tarnishing its reputation.”

  John Henry throws his one free hand up in the air in exasperation. “Louise, you act as if he did nothing wrong. He was taking advantage of our daughter, a student of his, for Christ’s sake, on school property. I mean what if he blackmailed her into giving him sexual favors? What if he told her he would write her a good recommendation if she—you know, if she did what he wanted her to do?”

  I take a sip of the bourbon, enjoying its sliding warmth. John Henry’s thought has some appeal, but it’s not the truth. I mean I’m sure girls are taken advantage of all the time, but not Caroline. She’s got too much backbone to let herself get exploited.

  “I tell you, John Henry, the two of them really like each other. They’re a good match. He’s only six years older than she. I blame the school. They were fools to hire a red-blooded young man to teach eighteen-year-olds, half of whom are blossoming, beautiful girls. What did they think would happen?”

  John Henry stares at me for a moment.

  “I’m really surprised that you’re defending her so with such zeal,” he says.

  “Well, I am her mother.”

  “I know, I know. I’m not criticizing you. To tell the truth, it’s nice to see you being so much on your daughter’s side.”

  I suppose I could take his comment as an insult, the flip side of it being that I’m not usually “for” Caroline, but I know what he means. It feels good and right to be fighting for her instead of against her.

  AFTER I FINISH my drink I go upstairs to her room. The door is closed and, I’m sure, locked.

  I knock.

  No answer.

  I knock again. “Caroline,” I say. “Open the door. We need to talk about what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

  I wait. Finally I hear the lock turning and I push the door open.

  We are standing face to face. I reach out to push her hair out of her eyes. She lets me before backing away and sitting down on the bed. She is submissive in a way that I’ve never seen before. And because of her weakness, her helplessness, I feel the same as I did in Miss Brown’s office, that I
must take charge. As if she’s going to be eaten by the wolves unless I step in the way.

  “Have you talked to Frederick?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “What did he say?”

  “He just kept saying how sorry he was. How he fucked up—sorry.” She looks up at me quickly, assuming, I suppose, that I’ll fuss at her for cursing.

  “I’m sure he feels terrible,” I say. “Poor thing.”

  “Um, I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’m really surprised that you’re not worried about the scandal that’s going to come from all of this.”

  “Oh honey,” I say. “Coventry is not going to let this out any more than they have to. Their reputation is on the line more than yours, believe me.”

  “But a group of visiting students saw me.”

  “Well, that was unfortunate, but there’s nothing you can do to change the circumstances of how you got caught. You know, darling, this is exactly the reason my mother always told me it was important to keep up with the little things, to say your ma’ams and sirs, to write your thank-you cards on time, so that people would feel generous toward you when the big things happen that you can’t control. I mean, think about her. She spent time at a mental institute. And do you think she got kicked out of the Junior League? Do you think she was ostracized at the Driving Club?”

  “Mom, Coventry isn’t a social club. I mean, sometimes it seems like it is, but it’s not. It’s high school. People aren’t just going to pretend nothing happened if I’m polite on the outside and keep up with my thank-you notes.”

  We are both silent for a moment.

  “Besides,” she says, “I was never good at keeping up with the little things. I kind of suck at the little things.”

  “Oh, but you are strong,” I say. “Listen, you have less than a month left of school. Just pretend that you are in a play, that you’re Hester Prine in The Scarlet Letter and your part lasts for three weeks, okay? And then when you get to New York next fall, all of this will be behind you.”

  I will tell Caroline the story behind the necklace I gave her—surely she’s earned the right to know—and knowing that story will give Caroline strength, will make her realize that everyone has their own shame to bear. Caroline will probably wear the necklace to school tomorrow, claim her A like the bold girl she is.

  “They’re going to kick me out.”

  “Believe me, sweetheart, your father and I are not going to let them kick you out.”

  “Even if they do somehow let me graduate and Juilliard still lets me enroll for next year, what I don’t get is why you’re not worried for you. You don’t get to leave Atlanta. I promise, Mom, everyone is going to know about it. I mean, ten minutes after Frederick and I were caught, everyone at school knew about it. They were all trying not to stare at me when I walked down the hall to Miss Brown’s office.”

  “Honey,” I say, “if scandal was going to bring our family down, don’t you think it would have happened when your uncle Wallace killed himself?”

  Caroline shrugs.

  “I’ll let you in on something,” I say. “During these next few weeks you should make a real effort to look as good as you possibly can. I’m serious now, darling. Sometimes a put-together exterior makes you feel better about whatever mess you’re dealing with on the inside.”

  She starts to laugh and I laugh a little too, aware of how—well, how shallow I must sound. Afterwards she straightens her shoulders. Some of her natural dominance is back. I hope it doesn’t curb my warm feelings toward her.

  “You’re going to go back to school tomorrow and hold your head up straight, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I smile at my sassy girl.

  WHEN I GO to her room the next morning to make sure she has gotten up and not just punched snooze on her alarm and fallen back to sleep, her bed is empty and made and on one of the pillows is an envelope addressed to “Mom and Dad.”

  I open it quickly and scan the letter she has left us. She is with Frederick, it reads. They are on a plane to San Francisco, where, she assures me, she will do whatever she needs to finish up high school, to get her GED. John Henry and I are not to worry about her. She is eighteen, she is with the man she loves, and she is strong. “I’ll be fine,” she writes. “I promise.”

  Part Two

  CHAPTER NINE

  Every Woman Has Some Jesus in Her

  (Louise, Fall 2002)

  Tiny has been my best friend since we were practically babies, so under normal circumstances I would be insulted that I wasn’t invited to the party she had last Saturday. But that party was a Republican fund-raiser, and years ago I told Tiny that while there is no arguing that the Republicans throw a better party than the Democrats, she should just stop sending me invitations to them. John Henry may vote the Republican ticket every time, but that doesn’t mean I have to support the GOP. No one knows this but Tiny, but back in college I dated, briefly, a Jewish boy named Ben Ascher who tried—in his words—“to make a bra-burning liberal out of a sweet Georgia peach.” Well, I have never burned a bra, but if my loyalty to the Democratic Party is any sort of sign, he at least partway succeeded.

  In lieu of my attending her party, I tell her that I will come over for an early lunch today—Monday—and help eat the leftovers from it. I drive to Brookwood Hills, Tiny’s neighborhood, just a mile or so down Peachtree from Ansley, and park the Lexus in front of Tiny’s mock Tudor house on Palisades. Walking along the stone path that winds from her front yard all the way to the back garden, I feel nothing but envy for Tiny’s landscaping. Everything that grows on the property is planned and deliberate, but it is planned in such a way that it looks completely natural, as if this little piece of paradise just sprung up of its own accord. I would love to hire Tiny’s gardener, Nancy, who does such a fabulous job, but she is booked solid for the next five years.

  Tiny’s back door is open but the screen door is closed. I push on it—it’s rarely locked—and let myself into the kitchen.

  Facing the opposite direction from me, Tiny pushes a tray of something yummy—I’m sure—into the oven. She has an apron tied around her waist and from this view she looks a bit like Julia Child in her prime. She’s certainly tall enough to pass for Julia.

  “Hello!” I say.

  Tiny turns from the oven, her bright pink lips formed into a surprised O as if I’ve been missing for years, as if we didn’t just this morning talk on the phone and confirm our plans for lunch.

  “Lou-Lou!” she cries. “Wait one second, let me just set the timer on these little quiches.”

  She closes the oven door, twirls the timer, and rushes over to me, throwing her arms around me in a full-out embrace. It occurs to me as I take in the familiar smell of Joy perfume, Tiny’s preferred fragrance for the past twenty years, that she is the only woman I know who really hugs.

  “I love this,” she says, towering over me while she touches the sleeve of my pale blue blouse. I look down quickly at where her fingers were, hoping she didn’t leave any quiche grease on the silk. She didn’t.

  “Neiman’s,” I say. “On sale.”

  “It’s perfect,” she says. “Now what are we drinking?”

  She walks to her refrigerator and opens the door. “I’ve got a wonderful pinot gris, a very delicious champagne, or if we want to be poops, Perrier.”

  Even though I know I shouldn’t drink in the middle of the day, there’s no real point in my saying no to the wine. Tiny will eventually wear me down.

  I gaze at the items in Tiny’s refrigerator while considering whether or not to go ahead and give in to an afternoon of alcohol. As always, I envy the contents of Tiny’s Sub-Zero. The top shelf holds drinks: eight-ounce glass bottles of Coke, Perrier, two bottles of wine, and three bottles of champagne. The second highest shelf holds prepared foods. I know that inside the large Tupperware container is homemade gazpacho, which Tiny will have on hand until the weather finally cools down, which can be as late
as mid-October. Today there is also a glass bowl filled with chicken salad, along with a plate of the sliced leftovers of a molasses-marinated pork roast, Tiny’s favorite dish to serve at parties.

  Below the prepared foods are fruits and vegetables. Unlike me, Tiny does not just buy her produce and then stick it into the refrigerator. She washes the grapes and separates them into snack-sized bunches. She cuts the carrots, celery, and peppers into sticks; she rinses the lettuce and stores it stacked between paper towels in the salad spinner.

  Truly, hardly anything escapes Tiny’s will.

  “Let’s go ahead and have the pinot gris,” I say, resigned.

  “Oh goody!” says Tiny. She pulls the bottle out of the fridge, opens it with her one-hundred-dollar high-tech opener, and pours it into wine glasses that she must have set out earlier.

  “I get the Baccarat?” I say, noticing that she is using her very best crystal. Tiny has hundreds of wine glasses but only twenty-four pieces of Baccarat.

  “Only the best for Lou-Lou,” she says, taking my free hand. “Come. I want to show you the fairy bowl Anders just bought on eBay.”

  “Good Lord, another one?” I ask.

  “First it was jewelry,” she says. “Anything I wanted he’d get for me as long as he could bid for it. You know how competitive that man is. Finally it got to be I had so many new bracelets and earrings I didn’t have any room left in my jewelry box. So I told him he needed to find a new outlet for his bidding, and Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre pieces have been it.”

  “But surely a bowl is bigger than a piece of jewelry,” I say.

  “Ah, yes, but I still have a spare shelf in the living room display case. It’s all about where there’s room to put things, darling.”

  We have to walk through the dining room to get to the living room. The dining room is wallpapered with a scene from the Revolutionary War. Tiny doesn’t much care for the paper. She thinks that the fierce Indians depicted in full war paint, complete with feathers sticking off their rear ends, look as if they are pooping, but before ripping it out she had it appraised and realized the antique paper was worth over ten thousand dollars.