Bound South

by Susan Rebecca White

  “Their mom, Mary, stays at home, big surprise. Dad is a minister at the ROCK church, where they ‘rock out’ for Jesus.”

  I keep missing what’s happening on the show because Charles is blabbing. “What did she just say?” I ask.

  “She said her boyfriend raped her.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Isn’t it?” asks Charles, but he doesn’t sound like he thinks it is. He sounds like he thinks it’s funny.

  “I’m going to kick his butt!” cries Matthew, standing up from the bed, his hands in fists.

  “Thataboy,” says Charles. “Put a boot in his ass for the Lord!”

  “Wait!” cries Dawn. The camera zooms in on her face. Her cheeks are chubby, like she still has baby fat, but she has wrinkles around her eyes like Mama.

  “My God, how old is she? Twenty-eight?” asks Charles. “Hello? Has she heard of Botox?”

  “How old is she supposed to be?” I ask.

  “Sixteen,” he says, smirking. “A sixteen-year-old with crow’s feet.”

  I turn sixteen next month. Dawn could be me.

  “Do you know what we need to do?” she asks.

  “Pray?” says Matthew.

  “That too. But first we need to tell Dad.”

  She looks down at her belly, rubs it, and then looks back at her brother.

  The scene freezes.

  “Intermission,” says Charles. “Just like a play. I think we’re supposed to read our Bibles during this time.”

  He’s pierced his nose since the last time I saw him. He has a tiny silver ball stuck in his right nostril that matches the silver balls around his neck.

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  I’m careful with my words, realizing that this might be my chance to help bring Charles to Jesus. I mean, even if he is making fun of it, he is watching a Christian TV show. That means the seed has been planted.

  “I’m wondering what you think might happen to you when you die.”

  Charles rolls his eyes. “Oh God,” he says. “You’re one of them.”

  “I’m a Christian if that’s what you mean.”

  “Jesus. You and everyone else I go to school with. I thought I was done with this for the summer.”

  “I’d like to know how you can say ‘Jesus’ if you don’t believe in Him?”

  “Hon, hate to break it to you, but I’ve heard that argument like ten million times. I go to Coventry, remember? Anyway, it’s a figure of speech. I can hardly escape a word that’s become a part of the American vernacular, can I?”

  Pastor Finch says the unsaved are always trying to use fancy talk to trip you up, but as long as you understand their tactics and don’t get flustered, you can give it right back to them.

  “What does going to Coventry have to do with whether or not you know Jesus?” I ask.

  “Don’t you know Coventry is a Christian preparatory school for boys and girls? Home of metal fish slapped on the backs of luxury SUVs?”

  “It’s not a sin to have money,” I say. “It means God trusts you with earthly affairs. There’s a whole show about it on GIG; it’s called Growing Your Talent.”

  “Oh honey,” Charles says, as if he’s much, much older than me, when I know he’s only seventeen. “Shh! We’re back on!”

  Dawn and Matthew walk down the stairs and into a nice living room. In it there are potted plants by the windows and framed photos above the mantelpiece and a braided rug on the floor. In the middle of the room two sofas are pushed together to form an L, and there’s a big entertainment center against the wall. They walk through the room and knock on a closed door on the other side of it.

  “Pops is very hip,” says Charles. “You’ll like him. He’s all Jesus is my homeboy and shit.”

  “Dad?” asks Dawn, pushing open the door.

  “You better knock,” says Charles. “He might be in there whacking off.”

  I try to ignore him and concentrate on the show.

  The camera shows the back of a man’s head. His curly hair is the exact same color as Dawn’s, like it’s been dyed to match too. Nailed above his desk is a wooden cross, and there are all sorts of band posters framed and hanging on his wall. I recognize some of the names of the bands from listening to the Loaf FM: Yes, Sir! and Holy Howl and Plant a Seed.

  The man turns in his swivel chair so that he’s facing his children. He is wearing a black button-down shirt tucked into black jeans. He’s got cowboy boots on and…oh my God.

  “Yes?” he asks.

  My stomach drops.

  It can’t be.

  “Dawn has something to tell you,” says the boy.

  The father smiles at his daughter.

  Oh sweet Jesus. This isn’t like that time way back, back before RD and Mama got married, when I was convinced that some man in a car lot commercial was Daddy. That was just wishful thinking. This is…

  Oh sweet Jesus.

  He has the same slight gap between his two front teeth. Not a chip like Mama, just a cute little gap making his smile special. Making it so he could spit a stream of water that would arc like a fountain, driving Mama crazy at the dinner table.

  “He’s cute, huh?” asks Charles.

  “Shh,” I say, waving him away with my hand. I get up and walk to the TV. I want to see his face up close. How many times have I dreamed about seeing him since he left so many years ago?

  “You two look like you have something serious to discuss,” he says. “Shall we start by taking it to the Big Guy?”

  “What is up with you?” asks Charles. “Never seen a rock ’n’ roll preacher before?”

  I’m having a hard time getting the words out because my mouth is so dry. “That man,” I say, touching his face with my finger. “That man is my father.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Box

  (Louise, Labor Day Weekend 2004)

  Poor John Henry. When Caroline asked if we would come to San Francisco to see her new show, Got Freedom?, she did not warn us that she would be naked for the majority of her time on stage, not to mention that at one point during the performance she would leap into a pile of other naked bodies and proceed to writhe on the floor.

  Granted, it wasn’t sexy—wasn’t supposed to be—but it was shocking. Although maybe not as shocking as the director intended. Maybe only shocking because Caroline is our daughter and we are used to seeing her dressed and upright.

  John Henry and I wait in the lobby after the show, not saying a word to each other for fear that someone who knows Caroline might overhear us criticizing the performance. Eventually Caroline emerges from the greenroom, her face scrubbed of her stage makeup. She wears a pair of faded jeans and a faded red T-shirt that I am sure she bought at Goodwill. Tied around her waist is a lightweight cashmere cardigan I gave her for Christmas last year. It seems crazy to need a sweater in the summer, but that’s San Francisco for you. (Not that I really know much at all about San Francisco. This is only our second trip out here since Caroline ran away.)

  “Hey!” I say. “Our star!”

  I can tell she’s nervous because she doesn’t start grilling us for feedback like she usually does after one of her plays.

  “Y’all hungry?” she asks.

  “Not starving,” says John Henry, “but I could eat.”

  I try to eat only when I am very hungry, but look at which one of us is skinny and which one of us could stand to lose ten pounds.

  “There are a million good restaurants around here,” Caroline says. “There’s crepes, there’s sushi, there’s a sort of American supper club dealie, there’s burritos—”

  “No burritos,” says John Henry. “Your mother will have gas all night.”

  I do not even dignify his comment with a response.

  “Sushi sounds nice,” I say. John Henry shoots me a look. Raw fish is not his favorite, but let him order chicken teriyaki. He’ll live. “Are we dressed for it?” I ask.

  John Henry is wearing a blue blazer over a polo shirt
and I am wearing an Armani suit I bought three years ago at Neiman’s.

  “You both look great,” says Caroline. “Come on. It’s just a few blocks up this way.”

  She leads the way to Sixteenth Street and Valencia. It shouldn’t surprise me that Caroline navigates the city so well; surely she’s been doing it since she was eighteen and left for San Francisco. Still I feel a certain pride in my girl. I put my hand on John Henry’s arm. He glances at me, smiles. He’s proud of her too.

  The sidewalks are crowded with people, mostly young. In fact, the only old people I see are pushing shopping carts filled with empty bottles and cans. I notice how deftly my daughter avoids the beggars, and it makes me think of the first time I took her to New York when she was ten. It was a girls’ weekend, and she and I stayed at the Waldorf. Her father had given her fifty dollars for spending money. She must have given half of it away to the beggars on the street. Whenever someone asked, she gave. I figured it was hers to spend however she liked, but John Henry had a fit when I told him about it.

  “What if some drug addict stuck an AIDS-infected needle in her arm?” he demanded when I called home that night.

  “Honestly, darling,” I said. “How do you come up with these things?”

  WHEN WE GET to the restaurant—Sue Su’s Sushi—the hostess seats us at a low-lit table in the back. On the wall behind us is a painting of a white ship afloat on a black sea. Before sitting, I examine the painting, trying to decipher whether or not the ship is in danger. Caroline takes her cell phone out of the canvas bag she uses as a purse and dials her new boyfriend, Davis, to see if he can join us. The waitress approaches our table and before she has a chance to say anything Caroline—the phone still pressed against her ear—orders three Asahis.

  “And a huge water,” adds Caroline.

  “I’d like water too,” I say.

  “Me too,” says John Henry. “With lemon.”

  “Oh that’s good,” I say. “Lemon all around.”

  Caroline gives the waitress an apologetic look, as if John Henry and I are demanding too much by ordering a garnish. As if using a cellular telephone in the middle of the restaurant makes her a paragon of good manners. I hear her whisper “love you” before she hangs up the phone, which surprises me—I thought they’d only been dating for a few months—though it shouldn’t. Caroline has always rushed into things.

  “Davis is coming,” she says.

  “What did you just order for us?” asks John Henry.

  “Japanese beer,” she says. “You’ll like it.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” says John Henry just as the waitress brings us the bottles.

  “I’ll be back with your waters,” she says.

  “And could you bring us ladies a couple of glasses for our beer?” I ask.

  “I don’t need a glass,” says Caroline.

  “It’s unbecoming for a woman to drink beer from a bottle,” I say, doing a dead-on imitation of Nanny Rose’s lockjaw accent (an admittedly ungenerous thing to do considering I wholeheartedly agree with the rule).

  My daughter sticks her tongue out at me, but she is only teasing. It occurs to me to consider it a minor miracle that we have finally reached a place in our relationship where neither one of us wants to strangle the other. She’s grown so pretty these last few years. Even with her dark hair pulled into a messy knot on top of her head, the wisps that usually curl around her face slicked back with sweat, she looks becoming. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are alert. She looks alive.

  “You worked hard tonight, didn’t you?” I ask.

  “Ugh,” she says, then takes a sip of beer. I do the same thing even though it’s out of the bottle. It’s cold and crisp.

  “This is delicious,” I say.

  She smiles. “Isn’t it? I wish y’all had seen a better performance. The cast was off tonight.”

  “Are there any shows where you don’t take your clothes off?” asks John Henry. “I’d like to see that one.”

  Caroline sighs, exaggerated on purpose. “Daddy,” she says, “the nudity wasn’t gratuitous. We were showing how unsexy the body can be without rosy light and candles.”

  “I could have told you that,” I say, thinking of my mushy belly and the cellulite that has started creeping up the backs of my thighs.

  “Hey!” says John Henry. “Who are you calling unsexy?”

  “I’m talking about me, darling. You should be studied. With the exception of that teeny-tiny bald spot of yours, you don’t seem to age.”

  “Four miles a day,” says John Henry. “Rain or shine.”

  I’m surprised the man doesn’t beat his chest.

  “Mom, first of all, you are beautiful. Second, talking about bodies, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

  She twists a stray piece of her hair with her finger. “I have this friend Deidre who is making a book about women’s vaginas. The working title is Box. What she’s planning on doing is photographing the vaginas of twenty different women and then interviewing each of them about their relationship with it.”

  “This is a conversation you and your mother should have in private,” says John Henry, staring at the illustrations of sushi on the menu.

  “Are you suggesting I let a stranger photograph my ‘rhymes with Carolina’?” I ask, using Nanny Rose’s term just to make Caroline laugh.

  “Deidre is a friend of mine, not a stranger,” Caroline says. “She put out a photography book showing women in various states of orgasm. It won a major prize.”

  “Various states?” asks John Henry. “Like Missouri?”

  “Yeah,” says Caroline. “And Ohio, and Vermont and Georgia.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “Louise,” says John Henry, “you’ve got to work on your wit.”

  “So do you want to?” asks Caroline.

  “What, work on my wit?”

  “Ha,” says Caroline, though I wasn’t meaning to be funny. “Have your vagina photographed for the book.”

  “Darling,” I say, “have you gone completely insane?”

  A NICE-LOOKING young man walks into the restaurant wearing a seersucker jacket over a crisp white shirt tucked into linen pants. Seersucker. My father used to wear seersucker from May through September. The fabric would leave lines on my cheek when I hugged him.

  Besides Daddy, I can’t remember the last time I saw a young man wearing seersucker outside of a J. Crew catalog. I know plenty of men John Henry’s age who wear it, but no one who doesn’t yet have a bald spot or a paunch, and certainly no one in San Francisco, where ill-fitting thrift store finds seem to qualify as the epitome of fashion.

  Even from a distance I see that this man’s eyes are blue and alert.

  And then the young man in seersucker walks to our table and Caroline jumps up and kisses him hello.

  “Mom, Dad,” she says, “this is Davis.”

  John Henry stands up as far as the table will allow him to and reaches out his hand. I can tell just by watching their shake that Davis has a firm grip.

  “Excuse me if I don’t get up,” I say. “I’m not sure if there’s room for me to stand without bumping the table.”

  “Oh, please stay where you are,” he says. He reaches into an inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a purple box the size of a small book. He hands it to me and then slides into the booth next to Caroline.

  “Caroline told me that you are a connoisseur,” he says.

  I open the box. Chocolate.

  “Ooh, fleur de sel caramels,” says Caroline.

  “Sea salt,” explains Davis, as if I don’t know what fleur de sel is. “Harvested by hand off the coast of Brittany. They put it into the caramel and it is just amazing.”

  “Well, I shall have to have one right now,” I say. I bite into one. The chocolate surrounding the caramel is slightly bitter, the caramel buttery with salty little crunches.

  “I could die happy,” I say.

  Caroline smiles and squeezes Davis’
s arm. John Henry reaches over to my box of chocolates and pops one in his mouth. I want to bat his hand away. That man doesn’t know the difference between a Hershey Kiss and a hand-dipped truffle.

  “Good stuff,” says John Henry. Before he can grab another one I put the lid on the box.

  “Are you hungry, sweetie?” asks Caroline.

  “Starving,” says Davis. “What have you guys ordered?”

  “We haven’t,” I say. “But I just love California rolls.”

  “Great,” says Davis, but Caroline flattens the corners of her mouth.

  “What?” I say. “What’s wrong with California rolls?”

  “Not hip,” answers John Henry, as if he is the king of cool in his blue blazer with gold buttons.

  When the waitress returns Caroline orders all kinds of things I’ve never heard of, and John Henry orders another round of beers for the table. I never think I like beer until I am actually drinking it and then I love it.

  I look across the table at my daughter and her boyfriend and it occurs to me that the two of them look a lot like John Henry and I did when we were young. Caroline has let her hair grow long enough to wear it up, and it is no longer cut in a deliberately unattractive style. It has been so long since I’ve seen her with long hair—two summers ago, the first time we visited her in San Francisco, her head was shaved, and when she came to Atlanta for Christmas it was still quite short—that I almost didn’t recognize her when she picked John Henry and me up at the San Francisco airport.

  Davis is better looking than John Henry was, but there is a definite resemblance. They both have square jaws and blue eyes, and they both hold themselves in a way that exudes authority. Not rigid exactly, just assured of their place in the world, assured that they know how the universe really operates. He is not at all someone I would have imagined for Caroline. He is so immaculately put together, so well polished. He is probably the type of man who uses a lint roller before meeting with clients. And he is a man, not a boy. Indeed, he looks as if he might be a decade older than Caroline.