Benediction (8 page)

Wait, she said. Are you trying to escape from me?

He stopped and turned toward her.

They told me about you. You’re going to be a sophomore in high
school. It’s too bad you’re not still a freshman, I could initiate you. Well I can
anyway.

She had her own car and they went out at night driving all over the town and out into
the country on the gravel roads as far south as Highway 36 and as far north as Interstate
76, John Wesley in the seat beside her, the windows open, the cassette player playing
her music, the two of them talking, and then they would pull off the road onto a farm
track or an unused side road and she would move him into the backseat and unbutton
him and teach him what she knew, and afterward sweaty and red-faced they would get
back in the front to drive some more. The air would be coming in cool and fresh and
the dust boiling up behind them on the county roads, with rabbits and coyotes and
red foxes and raccoons all out at night on the road, and once suddenly the great white
shape of a Charolais cow broadside in the headlights together with its pale calf,
and occasionally they’d stop again for another time in the backseat. She was on birth-control
pills. Are you stupid? she said. I thought you city boys knew something. I’m not going
to get pregnant and fuck everything up. Don’t worry about it. Come on, preacher’s
boy. Don’t you want to go again.

Then he’d return home. She’d drop him off in front of the parsonage and drive away
and he’d walk up onto the porch and enter the dark quiet house. His father and his
mother would be asleep in their bedroom upstairs, and he’d go back to the kitchen
and make something to eat, and take the food up to his room, and enter the bathroom
and lower his trousers and inspect himself and soothe his soreness with hand salve
and return to his bedroom and turn on the computer and eat the food he’d brought upstairs
and read his messages.

It went on for most of a month this way. He and this older girl, Genevieve Larsen,
out in the country in the dark in Holt County driving and stopping and climbing into
the backseat. And then starting
the car again and turning back out onto the gravel roads and always the dust swirling
and rising up behind them.

You should have known me in Denver, he said. It was different in Denver. I had friends
there. I was known there.

What’d you do? Sit around and play with your computer?

No. We had fun. It was interesting.

Doing what?

It was different. There’s so much to do. We went out at night and talked and saw people.
Ate in the cafés. We laughed and laughed. We hung out at the malls.

We’re out at night. We’re talking. Don’t you like this?

Yes. Of course.

You didn’t have somebody like me there, did you?

No.

Well.

I don’t know, it was just different there. That’s all I’m saying. You’d have liked
it.

You’re going to mess this up, do you know that? You don’t even see what’s in front
of you. You’re like everybody else.

No, I’m not.

You’re dreaming backward.

One night his mother was waiting in the living room, reading, when he came in. It
was late. He stood in the doorway. She was watching him over the top of her book.

Come here, she said. I want to look at you.

Why?

I want to see what you look like when you come in so late after being out with her
all night.

It’s not all night.

Don’t be literal. You know what I mean.

He went over and stood before her. She studied him, a tall skinny thin-faced boy,
his hair a mess.

You smell like her, she said. Don’t you.

No.

Yes, you smell like her. You have her odor. I hope you’re not being foolish about
this. I hope you’re not going to get this girl pregnant.

She’s on the pill.

Is she. Did she tell you that?

Yes.

Do you believe her?

Yes.

Well, we can hope she’s not a little liar. Do you love her?

It’s none of your business.

Do you or not?

Yes, I do.

That’s good. I wouldn’t want it all to be for nothing. Just sex.

Mother. What are you doing?

You’ll get tired of her. Or she you. It doesn’t last. Love doesn’t last. You look
like you’re losing weight. Are you?

No.

Well go to bed. You must be exhausted.

A
T THE WINDOW
sitting in his chair Dad Lewis was awake in the late morning when the Johnson women
drove up and stopped in front of Berta May’s house and got out of the car in their
summer dresses. They went up the walk onto the porch and knocked and stood waiting.

Dad turned his head and called toward the kitchen.

Yes? Mary said. Do you want something?

Would you come out here?

She came out through the dining room. Is something the matter?

They’re over at Berta May’s.

Who is?

Willa and Alene.

Mary looked out the window. The Johnson women were still standing on the porch.

What are they doing over there? Dad said. I thought they’d be coming here again.

Maybe they’re just paying a call.

Berta May came and drew back the lace curtain at the front window and peered out and
opened the door.

I didn’t hear you knock. Will you come in?

Is this a bad time to come? Willa said.

No. I don’t guess it is. Is there something I can help you with? Come in, please.

They stepped inside. Alene looked at her mother and said, We just wondered if we might
take Alice out for lunch today.

Take her out for lunch.

Yes. If you wouldn’t mind.

Well, I don’t know. You only want her. Is that what you’re saying?

Oh no, we’d like you to come too if you want to.

She looked at them. No. I see now. I’m afraid I’m getting slow. You thought you might
take her for a treat. Is that it?

If you wouldn’t mind.

I don’t mind. But we’ll have to ask her.

Is she here?

Out in the backyard. I’ll call her.

She went out and stood at the kitchen door and called the girl in and they came back
together to the living room. The girl was tanned and freckled, in shorts and T-shirt.

Her grandmother stood with her arm around her. They want to ask you something. Go
ahead and ask her, if you’d care to.

Willa smiled at Alice. Do you remember meeting us next door when we were visiting
Dad and Mary Lewis?

Yes.

We wanted to know if we could take you out for lunch today.

The girl looked up at her grandmother’s big red face.

If you want to, Berta May said. It’s up to you.

For a little excursion, Alene said. Just the three of us.

Isn’t Grandma coming?

No, I’m staying here. I got too much to do right here.

We’d bring you back home as soon as you would want.

Where to?

Where would we go to eat?

Yes.

We thought the Wagon Wheel Café out on the highway. Have you been there?

I don’t think so.

You haven’t, Berta May said. We go to Shattuck’s if we eat out.

I guess I can go, Alice said.

Then you better go change your clothes. You can’t go out in public to eat with these
ladies looking like that.

What should I put on?

You decide.

The girl looked at them again and went back into the hall to her bedroom. The women
stood and talked, waiting for her.

Then she came back in a yellow shirt and green shorts.

Well, those are some bright clothes, her grandmother said. You won’t get run over
at least.

They’re my new clothes.

I know. They’re clean anyway.

Would you like to go now? Willa said.

They went out to the car in the dazzling sun of midday and Alene drove and Willa sat
beside her in the front seat and the girl rode in the back and watched out the window
and looked at the back of the heads of the two women. They went up to the highway
and turned east past the Gas and Go and on beyond the Highway 34 Grocery Store into
the country past the implement dealership.

They parked and went inside the café and waited at the counter until a woman in a
white blouse and a black skirt came and led them past the bar and the salad buffet
into the second room to a table where the woman put down menus at three places and
took away the fourth place setting. Luann will be your waitress today, she said. She’ll
be with you in a moment.

Where would you like to sit? Willa said.

Alice looked at the table and then around the room.

Do you want to face the doorway so you can see who’s coming in or look out the window
toward the fields?

The doorway, the girl said.

She pulled her chair out and took her seat and the two women sat on either side of
her. They took up the menus.

What do you feel like eating? Alene said.

I don’t know what there is.

Alene pointed in the menu. There are salads and sandwiches listed on this side and
main dishes on this page.

Do they have hamburgers?

Yes. But you can have anything you want.

The waitress came and they ordered drinks. She had blond hair, teased out around her
face, and was nice-looking.

Who’s this now? she said.

This is Alice. Berta May’s granddaughter.

Oh my, aren’t you a pretty girl. I like your outfit.

Thank you.

I could take you home with me, you’re so pretty. Do you want to come and be my little
girl? I just got boys.

I don’t know.

Maybe some other day.

The girl shrugged.

The waitress left and came back with glasses of tea for the Johnson women and a Coke
for Alice. Willa ordered soup and a salad and Alene a club sandwich and Alice said
she still wanted a hamburger.

How do you want it cooked, honey? the waitress said.

The girl looked at Alene.

Do you like it pink inside or all brown?

All brown.

With fries? the waitress said.

The girl looked at Alene again.

I think you’ll want some fries, don’t you?

Yes.

The waitress went off to the kitchen.

Rose Tyler’s here, Alene said to her mother. By herself.

They looked at the old woman sitting alone by the window.

She’s never going to get over him, Willa said.

Why would she? People don’t.

The girl watched them talk and looked out through the doorway to the other room where
people were coming and going.

After the waitress brought their food Alice started to pour ketchup
on her hamburger but it spurted out, covering it all and she set the bottle down and
stared at her plate and put her hands in her lap. She looked as if she would cry.

We’re not going to worry about that, Alene said. We can just scrape it off. Do you
want me to?

I can do it, the girl said. She scraped and spooned the ketchup off onto the side
of her plate.

There, Willa said. That’s better. Isn’t it.

The girl nodded and began to eat her French fries, picking them up one at a time and
dipping the end in the ketchup and biting off the end and dipping it in again and
eating the rest by small bites. The Johnsons watched her.

I’ve only used squirt bottles, Alice said. I used to help my mother fill the ketchup
and mustard bottles and the salt and pepper shakers.

Your mother worked in a restaurant?

Yes. She always had me help her.

Do you have any pictures of her?

I do at Grandma’s. The girl looked around the room. She looked back at her plate.
That old man’s dying like my mother did.

You mean Mr. Lewis, the man next door to you.

He’s got it all over him. My mother had it in her breast.

We heard about that. We’re very sorry.

Alice looked out the doorway and said, She didn’t have blond hair like that waitress.

Didn’t she?

She had brown hair like me.

Then she must have been a very pretty woman. I wish we had known her.

How does she get her hair that way? So puffy like that.

Well. She must blow-dry it and tease it and then pick it.

As they drove back to town in the car after lunch, Alice was looking out the side
window at the trees and the houses going by. My mother said teasing your hair could
damage it, she said.

O
N THE PHONE
Dad Lewis told Rudy and Bob to bring him the sales numbers in the morning this time
since in the afternoons he wasn’t much good anymore, then he hung up and turned to
Lorraine. Don’t you want to sit in with us so you can see for yourself what these
store accounts look like?

Daddy, they don’t want me there.

How do you know that? It doesn’t matter what they want. If I tell them you’re sitting
in, that’s what will happen.

I’m still trying to decide if I want to at all.

You have to make up your mind pretty soon. This isn’t going to go on forever, you
know that. You can’t put it off much longer. If you don’t want to, I’ve got to do
something else.

I know, Daddy.

So at midmorning the clerks came up on the porch and Rudy knocked quietly on the door.
They removed their caps and Mary ushered them into the living room and served them
coffee, and again they sat side by side on the couch as they had each time, as if
they were attending a funeral service, and Dad was in his chair as always with a blanket
over his knees and with his wood cane laid on the floor beside him.

Rudy was a little quick voluble middle-aged man, with a balding head, and Bob was
tall and skinny and slow, with thick graying hair combed straight back. Rudy held
the store accounts in a file on his lap.

You boys doing any good today? Dad said.

We’re doing pretty good, Rudy said. How about you, Dad? It seems like you’re looking
a lot better.

Dad looked at him. Now that is bullshit and you know it.

Well, you don’t look too much on the worse side, Bob said.