Trouble With the Truth (9781476793498)

by Robinson, Edna

  There on the horse, it occurred to me that the more Ben had learned about sexual activity, the less he talked about it with me.

  “I don’t understand why Daddy doesn’t think Felicity is beautiful…” I said. My unspoken thought—if he wants to make love to her—still stuck in my throat.

  Ben stiffened and swiveled in his saddle. “How do you know he doesn’t think she’s beautiful?”

  “He told me so. I asked him.”

  Ben seemed appalled and unaccountably wounded. “What right did you have to ask him a thing like that?” he almost yelled. “He probably lied to you.”

  “I don’t think so. He said she was a ‘contrived work,’ whatever that means. But he meant she isn’t beautiful, and he said that her hair is ‘hideous.’ That’s exactly what he said, Ben.”

  “He doesn’t appreciate her,” Ben said belligerently. “But a kid like you has no right to know that. I’ve known it from the beginning.”

  We rode for a few more paces. “Do you think she’s beautiful, Ben?”

  “Felicity is the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world,” pronounced Ben. “Lucresse, do you have any money?”

  In addition to his other duties, Fred was keeper of the funds in our household. Wherever we lived, on the first day of residency, my father opened a bank account in the local bank, and Fred visited it every Monday morning to withdraw cash for the week. Fred kept it cached in a bilious-green tin box on a shelf in the closet in his room and doled it out to my father, Ben, and me, as requested. My father’s requests were meager; he spent more than we did, but he charged everything. He needed cash only for tips and occasional periodicals. My requests were spasmodic, depending on passing whims and the time of the month. Ben’s were the most frequent and depleting. He always had something to buy, in addition to the usual school lunches and notebook paper.

  Fred’s early youth supplied him with visions of a life endured in dark mines consequent to too-free spending, and he chafed at what he considered Ben’s extravagance. Ben stopped asking him directly for funds and instead approached my father, who wasn’t overly concerned about the extent or reasons. But my father had to ask Fred. It got so that, in return, Fred would ask if my father wanted the money for himself or for Ben.

  It was at that junction, only a few months before we moved to Palm Beach, that, at Fred’s suggestion, allowances were instituted for us. Though Ben’s was four dollars, twice the amount of mine, I always had more on hand than he. I was always lending him money. And while we habitually bet a thousand or ten thousand or a million dollars on any subject of dispute, and the debts engaged in were never paid or meant to be paid, I felt serious about the dollar forty-five or eighty cents he owed me week to week. My father said I took after Fred.

  But now, Ben’s appeal for a loan was more sudden and urgent than usual. I knew books or an upcoming movie were not involved.

  “Why do you want it?” I demanded.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “How much do you have?

  “Seven dollars and twenty cents.”

  “That might do it. I’ve got three. Are you going to let me have it or not?”

  “All of it? What do you want it for, Ben?”

  “If you must know, I’ve got to talk to Felicity, alone. I’m going to take her to lunch tomorrow.”

  “During lunch period?”

  “I won’t go back for the afternoon. This is more important than school. I may never go back.”

  “Ben!”

  “I know you’re too young to understand this, Lucresse, but can you keep a secret, for a little while anyway? Until tomorrow night?”

  “I swear, Ben.”

  “I’m in love with Felicity. Insanely. Forever. And I know she’s in love with me. The only thing that’s been keeping us apart is Dad. I thought he was in love with her too. And I’m sure she thought so. Now are you going to give me the seven twenty or not?”

  I stared at him.

  “I told you you wouldn’t understand,” he said. “You’re too immature. Well, are you going to give me the money and keep quiet, or not? You swore.”

  “I’ll give it to you, but you’ve got to pay it back.” I was overcome by the idea of a fifteen-year-old boy escaping from the school cafeteria to keep a rendezvous with a thirty-eight-year-old woman—a rendezvous meant to be never-ending. Ben’s jaws were set with determination. His legs never looked so sticklike.

  Except for “Good girl” when I gave him the money at home later, Ben said no more to me. During the evening, and in the morning, Felicity’s behavior toward us all was no different than usual, and I was afire with curiosity and undirected pity. I didn’t know whether I should feel sorry for my father because Felicity didn’t love him, even though he didn’t love her, or have a womanly compassion for her because she was to be informed that he didn’t care for her as she’d thought he did, even though she didn’t love him. I decided to focus my sympathy on my father. Whether he loved Felicity or not, whether he thought her hair hideous or not, he’d welcomed her as a warm companion of sorts. And wouldn’t it surprise and humiliate him to discover that she wasn’t satisfied to be of that value? And worse, that she’d found fuller fulfillment in his son?

  The only one I didn’t feel sorrow for was Ben. He was to be triumphant in the triumvirate. As always—I remembered his soloing in Flowers of Spring—he’d get what he wanted. I marveled at him. On the way to school the next morning, if he’d said he was going to make snow fall from the bright Florida sky, I would have believed he could. All I dared ask was, “Is Felicity going to meet you for lunch? Did you ask her?”

  “Of course,” he said. His thoughts seemed far away.

  After a moment, I tried some more. “Ben, suppose your teacher asks me where you are? What should I say?”

  “Say you don’t know. You won’t know.”

  “But, Ben—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Lucresse. I’m going to have to make a lot of arrangements. I’ll check out of school myself, my own way. I told you, I have to speak to Felicity. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

  “When are you going to tell Daddy?”

  “As soon as possible, if Felicity agrees. Just remember, it’s not up to you to tell him anything.”

  “When you’ve arranged everything, will you tell me?” I said anxiously.

  “You’ll hear about it.”

  • • •

  Later that day at lunch period, I scanned the cafeteria for Ben. He wasn’t there. I didn’t even look for him after school. Instead I ran all the way home, expecting to find him already halfway through a heated, crucial three-way discussion of the future with my father and Felicity. She’d be holding Ben’s hand. My father would be unable to look at them. The lines in his face would be deeper. Fred, having overheard everything, would be muttering to himself in the kitchen.

  When I burst in, Fred was not there. Neither was Ben. My father and Felicity were in the living room. More accurately, he was in the living room, in his chair, very still, eyes cast down as I’d imagined, and Felicity was barging back and forth across the room, into the dining room, circling the table, and back into the living room, as though borne by a tornado, hair and hands flying, talking at the top of her voice.

  “But where is he, Walter? Don’t you understand that the boy is tortured! He knows I’m telling you about it! Who the hell knows what he’s doing! And you sit there! Hello, Lucresse!”

  “Where’s Ben?” I asked.

  “He’ll come back,” said my father.

  “My God, Walter. I wish I was as sure as you. Haven’t you ever been a boy!?”

  “Not like Ben. I was a baby until I was forty.”

  I didn’t think it possible for Felicity’s voice to get louder, but it did. “This is no time for jokes, Walter! That poor kid might do anything. You should of seen him when he left me.”

  As innocently as I could, I inquired about what had happened—lighting the fuse to the extra store of dyna
mite in Felicity’s heart.

  “He told me he had to talk to me, alone!” she exploded. “Naturally I thought it was about some crazy thing about acting or something. He wanted to make it an event, so I said, ‘Sure, Ben, I’ll meet you for lunch,’ and I wasn’t s’posed to say anything about it so I didn’t. How was I s’posed to know what was on his mind? The poor kid thinks he’s in love with me! That’s what’s happening!”

  She had referred to Ben as a “poor kid” twice too many times for me to now admit that I knew about their rendezvous. But I couldn’t have interrupted her if I’d wanted to.

  “He thought I was in love with him, only I didn’t know it yet, he said. He wanted me to go away with him! We’d be happy together the rest of our lives—”

  “Touring in Candida no doubt,” my father interjected.

  “I’m some type to play Candida!” bellowed Felicity. “Walter! Maybe that’s it! Has he been reading Candida?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s not convincing enough to trigger this,” he said.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” moaned Felicity. “I tried to set him right, but I guess I can’t set anybody right. He ran out of the restaurant at ten of one and he didn’t go back to school. I checked. Fred’s out looking for him now.”

  “He’ll find him,” my father said. “He can’t have gone far. He didn’t have much money.”

  An unpleasant throbbing spasm seized my heart. “He borrowed seven dollars and twenty cents from me yesterday,” I confessed. “And he already had three of his own.”

  “Then he had ten dollars and twenty cents,” said my father. “That couldn’t get him any further than Titusville, by bus, with eating.”

  “Did he pay for lunch, Felicity?” I asked.

  “No. And he didn’t eat his. That’s another thing—Ben needs to put on weight. Nothing bothers you, Walter. Ben is too thin!”

  “But Ben wouldn’t want to go to Titusville,” continued my father as though no one had spoken. “Even transported by desire, he wouldn’t head for Titusville.”

  “Oh where would he go?” moaned Felicity. “The sweet little damn fool. I should’ve told him he and me were meant for each other and brought him back home! Lucresse, stop standing there.”

  I was confused.

  “Put down your books!” she bellowed.

  I carried my books to the laden table behind the sofa and moved the day’s mail to make room for them. The mail hadn’t been opened, and one letter caught my eye. The familiar deliberate penmanship and address: “Mr. Walter Briard & Family.” It was Aunt Catherine’s monthly communication. I opened it and read it to the accompaniment of Felicity and my father talking, but not to each other—just thinking aloud in each other’s presence. From the violet stationery, I could hear Aunt Catherine’s voice punctuating their soliloquies with irrelevant remarks:

  —Joe has had a terrible cold ever since the last week in September. And I’ve been thinking of you all in sunny Florida. That’s a good place to be for anybody that’s given to taking colds and I hope you’ve all found it real happy there…

  “Where would he go?” wailed Felicity. “A kid like that, after a knock like that?”

  …Joe and I have hardly gone out anywhere, what with his cold, sneezing and coughing and getting him up in the nights, except to Tulsa for the Legion dinner last Saturday night, and we had to go to that ’cause Flo Daggett was chairman of food. I told you about her last month. She’s the one that thinks she makes the best potato pancakes in the whole world?…

  I didn’t recall Daggett or pancakes, but Aunt Catherine’s letters always abounded with references to local personalities who were strangers to us.

  “Ben watches Ben,” my father declared. “He isn’t foolish. Whatever he does, he does well. He’ll take disappointment well.”

  …Anyways, Joe thinks what with how things have been, and me doing all the work getting Flo to let Lucy Cummings make the potato pancakes, who really makes them so much better and keeping old Mrs. Dunhamly out of the way—of course it’s time I got out of this dreary winter weather for a spell…

  “You go mashugana the first time you think you’re in love,” Felicity said. “With me, it was Leon Rosenblatt. He was a great big healthy, shy boy. He played basketball and was going to night school to be an accountant. I used to daydream that he loved me and his name was different and he played polo, and I told my mother I wouldn’t spit on him.”

  …So he’s been after and after me, till finally he made me see my way clear to taking out for a visit with all of you in the near future. Let’s hope all goes well—with the drugstore I mean, and Joe’s cold—and I’ll plan on being there on December the eight…

  “It won’t take him long to stop hating us,” my father said. “The real problem is to figure out where he’d go to work on it.”

  “Walter, why don’t we call up some of his friends or that dramatics teacher of his?” Felicity begged.

  …It always does my heart good to think of seeing poor Jen’s loved ones. Did I tell you they’re thinking of building a new airport here? Right across from the cemetery? Well, did Joe and me put up an argument! Some people just have no respect for the dead…

  “More likely he’d be talking to strangers right now,” my father said.

  “If he was my boy,” Felicity ranted, “I wouldn’t leave him to talk his heart out to strangers. I wouldn’t let him meet up with a woman like me for his first crush.”

  …so it’s still up in the air what they’re going to do. I did want to tell you all though, Jen’s grave is the prettiest one there, and the little holly hedge around it is green as can be even in the bad weather we’ve been having…

  A car in the driveway arrested all voices. Car door slammed. Front door banged open. It was Fred. Alone. No one—at the bus terminal, railroad station, airlines, or at three classmates’ houses—had seen Ben.

  Fred was close to frantic. “Mr. Briard, it is five o’clock,” he said, trembling. “I do hope the lad hasn’t gone strolling near the docks. There is just no telling what villain he may have encountered—” Fred’s antipathy to sun and sea extended to the entire segment of mankind with anything to do with either. Such people—dock workers, fishermen, boatmen, and their near-laced relatives—had potentialities of evil unguessed by more civilized folk.

  “You have a very good point there!” My father perked up—surprisingly, because for years, he had been disputing Fred’s opinion of sea-faring people, always insisting that they were no better or worse than anybody else.

  Fred’s next thought was too terrible to speak aloud. “You don’t think he’s been shanghaied?” he whispered.

  “No,” said my father emphatically.

  “Then what, for God’s sake?” Felicity shouted, loud enough to hurt my head.

  Unhearing due to the drama in his head, Fred blinked and elaborated. “Bound head and hand to foot in the bottom of a boat,” he lamented.

  “Oy gevalt!” Felicity moaned. “What’re you gonna do, Walter? Wait till it’s too late? Call the cops!”

  “Use your head, Felicity!” My father pointed at her angrily. “It’s possible to figure out some things in life by thinking!” He pounded his own head with the finger he’d used to scorn hers. “Ben’s not on the way to Cuba!”

  “How the hell do you know?!” she blazed back at him.

  “Call it an educated guess!” he bellowed over his shoulder. “If Fred and I aren’t back by dinnertime, you two eat!” And he and Fred were out the door.

  • • •

  After the sound of the car faded, Felicity was odd—distraught, but quietly so. For the love of Ben, the walls had resounded with screaming, and now, for the same reason, I could hear the rustling of the palms outside and the low hum of the icebox three rooms away.

  Felicity sat stone-still, dark eyes blank with misery, hands fallen in her lap, ostensibly unaware that she wasn’t alone. All for the love of Ben. I told myself that s
he needed my comfort.

  But what I said was far more truthful. “Don’t worry like that, Felicity. Ben’s all right. I’m sure he is. He’s always all right. Ben never gets in trouble he can’t get out of.”

  Very slowly, her lids lifted until her eyes were looking into mine. It was as though her eyes could see through mine into an area inside that was mysterious even to me.

  “Don’t worry so much about yourself, Lucresse,” she said. “He may have hurt your feelings now and then—”

  “Now and then?” I exploded, the mysterious area suddenly exposed in a flood of light. I was so angry I could taste it—at Ben for being the focus of her and everyone’s attention and, even more confusing, at Felicity…for what?

  “…but he loves you,” continued Felicity. “And now his feelings have been hurt.”

  I tried to switch the light off fast. “And Daddy’s hurt your feelings. That’s what I really meant. He had no right to be so mean to you.”

  “He wasn’t being mean, Lucresse. He was making me feel better. Trying to believe himself that there are no consequences, serious consequences, for what I did.”

  “But, Felicity, you didn’t do anything,” I said, truly believing it and completely forgetting my feelings of two seconds before.

  “I moved in here, didn’t I? So it was fine for me to have you all help me get rid of Mead, wasn’t it? But did I think how it was for a little boy that didn’t know his mother? A boy all spiffed up ready and dying for a woman?”

  “But Ben and you…” I said, unable to fit the combination into any context.

  “If anything has happened to Ben…” she said, drifting off, her eyes dull and despairing again.

  “Nothing has,” I insisted, all at once hoping that nothing had—and suddenly it didn’t matter that Ben was the apex of everyone’s attention.