Gone With a Handsomer Man (7 page)

Since the O’Malleys attended First Baptist, I got to see Coop every Sunday, and at the Pack-a-Pew parties. Aunt Bluette said Coop was an Irish Baptist—Dr. O’Malley had been Catholic until he’d met Coop’s mama, a Baptist preacher’s daughter. I was grateful they’d picked my church because that meant I got to see Coop every day except Saturday. Because I was short and puny, he’d sneak up behind me and set me on his shoulders.

“Put me down, O’Malley,” I’d say, full of mock indignation.

Every afternoon, I saw him at football practice. I was in the band, the worst clarinet player in Bonaventure High, and I was evermore marching out of step. Coop would hang around to watch the head majorette, Barb Browning, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Not that it did me any good, because Coop and Barb had gone steady since junior high. They were voted “Cutest Couple” their senior year. Everyone assumed they’d get married, but the day after graduation, Coop and Barb broke up.

A week later, he walked up to me after church and said, “Hey, you ready for summer?”

I glanced over my shoulder, thinking he was speaking to someone else. He laughed and breezed on by. I was so discombobulated, I had to go home and put an ice pack on my head. Aunt Bluette kept asking what was wrong. I couldn’t tell her the truth, that I’d been infatuated with Cooper O’Malley for years, and when he’d finally acknowledged my existence, I’d acted awful, what Mama used to call Teenified.

Aunt Bluette bought me a tennis racquet at a garage sale and dropped me off at the community center. “But I don’t know how to play,” I told her.

“Watch,” she said. “And learn.” Then she drove off and left my ass.

I walked down to the tennis court and sat on a bench. Coop was playing on the first court with a tall, thin girl—not Barb. He cut a striking figure in his white shirt and shorts. After the game, he walked over to my bench.

“What you doing here, Templeton?” he said.

“It’s a free country, O’Malley,” I said.

“No really.” He laughed. “Are you waiting for a court?”

“Aunt Bluette said I needed to get out of the house. She dropped me off.”

He glanced at the parking lot. “Where is she?”

“Gone.”

“Need a ride home?” He zipped the cover over his racquet.

“The farm’s out of your way,” I said.

“It’ll give us time to talk.”

About what? I managed to control my breathing as we walked toward his car. The whole time, he tapped his racquet against mine. Finally he said, “Hey, Templeton, you doing anything next Saturday?”

I shook my head. I never did anything.

“The youth class is having a cookout at Lake Bonaventure,” he said. “Would you go?”

I stumbled, and he caught my arm. “Go with the class, you mean,” I said.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “With me, too.”

Aunt Bluette went to a garage sale and bought me a red polka dot swimsuit, just this side of a bikini, and a matching cover-up. I put the clothes into a paper sack that smelled faintly of peaches. He picked me up in a pastel gray ’69 Mustang, an old car that had belonged to his daddy.

During the drive to the lake, Coop tried to draw me into conversation, but my voice was shaky and I gave tight-lipped answers. Besides, a green bug was crawling on his shoulder, and I was distracted. I was afraid to pick it off. What if he thought I was being forward?

When we got to the lake, the whole youth group was there. I headed to the women’s restroom to change clothes. I pulled on the suit, then I jumped up and down, trying to glimpse myself in the high mirrors. The suit was skimpy. The bottom fit, but my breasts swelled out the top. I was ready as I’d ever be. I draped my cover-up over my arm and stepped out of the restroom into bright sunlight.

Coop was waiting beside a pine tree, holding a patchwork quilt. He wore a t-shirt and cutoffs. When I walked up, two dimples cut into his cheeks. It was the first time a boy had looked at me that way. I liked it.

Coop sat on the quilt while I picked daisies. Behind us, ski boats sliced across the green water. He wanted to know what I did on the peach farm. I wanted to know about Barb, but I bit down the question and watched a bass boat stir up waves, pushing swimmers into the shallows. The kids whooped and swam back, waiting for the next boat.

Smoke rose from the pavilion. It smelled of lighter fluid and hickory wood. One of the church elders came out and yelled at a girl who’d shown up in a string bikini. I slipped on my cover-up as one of the mothers led the girl to the restroom.

“Come on, Teeny,” Coop said. “Tell me about the farm. Y’all grow the sweetest peaches in Georgia. What’s your secret?”

It was the first time he’d said my name. A warm flush spread through my chest. I twirled a daisy and told him about pruning and trimming, hot days in the roadside stand, and my quest for the perfect peach turnover.

I held out the daisy. Coop started to tuck it into his pocket, when a strangled cry pierced the air. Way out in the water, a girl was thrashing. Just beyond her, two boats moved into the shallows, their motors drowning her garbled cries.

I sat up and looked toward the chaperones. They were crowded in the pavilion, hidden by a wavy veil of charcoal fumes. I glanced back at the lake. Waves lapped over the girl’s head. A white arm came up, her fingers clutching air.

The daisy fell from Coop’s hands. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the shore. Just before he dove in, the girl went under. The boats were headed straight toward her. Coop didn’t notice. He swam toward the flailing girl. Just before he reached her, she went down. He took a mighty breath and dove.

One boat cut in at an angle and sped toward the place where Coop had been. I ran down the bank and waved my arms, yelling at the boat. The church people ran out of the pavilion and began screaming, too. The boat sped up. Why didn’t the driver see or hear a shitload of Baptists waving and hollering?

Coop burst out of the water with the girl. The driver jerked the wheel. The boat veered away, sending up huge green waves. Coop and the girl floated up the edge of the swell, then slid down. He gripped her in a neck lock, keeping her face above the water.

The choir director waded in, but Coop was already kicking to shore. They laid the girl on the bank. Water rushed over her hair, pulling and fanning the damp brown strands over the pebbles.

She sat up and coughed while the choir director pounded her back. She burst into tears, hiccupping every other breath. Several of the church elders hollered out a few hallelujahs, then they went back into the pavilion.

Coop took my hand and led me back to the quilt. We flopped down. Water was beaded in his lashes. “What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked. “And the night after that?”

We dated that whole summer. He ate supper with us every night, wolfing down second helpings of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, red rice, and peach pie, though he later confessed that his favorite food in the world was egg salad sandwiches made with Duke’s Mayonnaise and lettuce, with a grind of pepper.

I wore garage-sale sundresses and dime-store panties that stayed on my body, despite long, intense necking sessions that steamed up the Mustang’s windows. Every night, on the oldies station, Elvis sang “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.”

I thought mine were ending. Night after night, Coop’s hands squeezed my breasts, but never once slipped under my clothing. Then we’d come up for air and he’d draw his fingers across the fogged window. I ♥ Teeny.

Coop’s birthday, August ninth, fell on a Sunday. I asked Aunt Bluette if we could fix Coop a special supper. I didn’t want to be forward, so I waited for him to call. I didn’t expect to wait long, as he’d been calling every night. I baked a chocolate layer cake from scratch and decorated it with yellow icing sunflowers. I couldn’t decide if
HAPPY BIRTHDAY COOP
was proper or too ordinary, so I decided to just write
COOP
.

Aunt Bluette drove me to Walgreens, and I squatted by the cologne counter. I dithered between Brut Revolution, Hugo Boss, and Drakkar Noir. Finally I settled on Euphoria. I came home, set the gift-wrapped box on the counter, and waited.

Coop didn’t call. That Sunday I looked for him everywhere at church. I saw Dr. and Mrs. O’Malley sitting in the fifth row with Mrs. O’Malley’s parents. Aaron Fisher sat in front of me and tried to flirt, but I brushed him off. After the service, Aunt Bluette saw me staring holes at the O’Malleys. She offered to sneakily ask about Coop.

“Lord, no!” I whispered.

“Better to know than to wonder,” she said and started toward the O’Malleys.

I grabbed her arm and dragged her to the door. “I’d rather stick pins in my eyes,” I said.

The next morning, I was helping Aunt Bluette make squash pickles, when I glanced out the kitchen window. Coop’s Mustang drove down our long driveway, stirring up gravel dust. I yanked off my apron and ran to the bathroom, ignoring Aunt Bluette’s questions. I brushed my teeth and ran a comb through my hair. It was too late to change—I was wearing one of Mama’s old t-shirts that featured Elvis on the front and back.

I heard a knock and ran into the hall. Aunt Bluette beat me to it. She held open the door and smiled at Coop. “Come on in,” she said. “Just come on in. Teeny’ll be here directly.”

The minute I saw the pinched look on his face, I knew this wasn’t a social call. Still, I shut my eyes and made a quick bargain with Jesus. If He’d let everything be all right between me and Coop, I wouldn’t miss another choir practice.

I led Coop into the parlor and moved a heap of old newspapers. “Have a seat,” I said. “Would you like some iced tea?”

“Teeny, we need to talk.” He stood by the sofa but didn’t sit down. “I don’t know how to explain, but I can’t see you anymore.”

“Why not?” I sat down and tried to catch my breath. I could feel an attack coming on and couldn’t remember where I’d put my inhaler.

“Me and Barb got back together.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded. Then I started wheezing.

“Teeny, you okay?” Coop asked.

I shook my head. No, I wasn’t okay. I’d never be okay. How could I have let myself care so much when he’d cared so little? I stretched out on the sofa, trying not to gasp. Aunt Bluette came running with my inhaler. She stuck it between my lips. “Breathe, Teeny,” she said and pushed the button.

I still couldn’t get air. She made me take another puff, then she turned back to Coop.

“Would you help me get her to the car?” she said to him.

I ended up spending the night at Bonaventure General Hospital, hooked to oxygen and an IV. While I slept, she made phone calls to get the dirt on Coop and Barb. My aunt’s best friend, Miss Wilma, had talked to Dr. O’Malley’s nurse, Miss Jane, who reported the lovebirds had been spotted at the Skyline Drive-In, the Dairy Queen, and the balcony at First Methodist, holding hands under the hymn book.

I just knew they were sleeping together. In my girlish mind, I wondered if sex was a binding agent, no different from an egg wash that seals the edges of puff pastry. A word about Barb. She’d tormented me in elementary school, but during my sophomore year, she’d picked me to be her new best friend. Her parents taught at the university in Augusta, and the walls in their house were lined with plaques and diplomas. Their house was smaller than Aunt Bluette’s but it was well tended and drop-dead gorgeous, filled with watercolor paintings, French antiques, bone china, and Persian rugs.

“I like warm colors,” Lucinda Browning said when she saw me staring at an orange-and-brown afghan.

“I do, too,” I said.

“I just made chocolate-dipped strawberries,” Lucinda said. “Let me get you one.”

She was a true foodie, always in her kitchen making puff pastry from scratch. “The secret is temperature,” she told me. “The dough must be chilled and put into a 400-degree oven.”

While Barb sat at the kitchen counter and painted her nails, Lucinda showed me how to make Italian granitas in an ice cube tray and how to add bacon bits and chives to corn muffin batter. I could have spent hours looking at her KitchenAid attachments and her full set of Le Creuset bakeware, but Barb wanted to fix me up with guys. When that backfired, she spurned me. Then worms turned up in my home ec cake, and I got an F. A dead crab was also found in my aunt’s truck.

Though Barb was a witch, I could see why a guy would pick her over me. She had educated, talented parents. A beautiful home. Gourmet food. But I still thought Coop might show up to the hospital, just to make sure I hadn’t gone into a coma or something, but the only O’Malley to darken my door was Coop’s father.

Summer ran by like spilled sorghum. I moped on the sticky hot screened porch, taking bronchodilators and reading cookbooks. The radio kept playing “I Do (Cherish You)” by 98 Degrees. Aunt Bluette sat down beside me. “Teeny, you got the pip?”

“No, ma’am.” The “pip” was a chicken disease. Once it took hold, it could wipe out a whole poultry farm. If I looked that bad, I wasn’t long for this world.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“Does this have something to do with Cooper?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You’re too young to be this heartbroke,” she said.

“How do you know what I feel?”

“Everything shows on your face, Teeny. You can’t hide nothing. All the Templetons are that way.” She was silent. “He didn’t get under your skirt, did he?”

“No, ma’am. But I wish he had.” I looked up, trying to see if I’d shocked her. Nobody in Bonaventure was more Baptist than my aunt, and no one was kinder. She laid her rough palm against my cheek.

“I just hate seeing you all tore up,” she said. “He was your first love, wasn’t he?”

I blinked and tears spilled down my cheeks.

“Oh, honey. Don’t cry. A lot of folks glorify their first loves. But that’s all it is.”

No way, I thought. This was hard-core love.

She must have seen something in my face because she began stroking my hair. “Everybody goes through this. Cooper will always be the one you can’t forget. But your heart will come back to you. It’ll come back when you love again.”

The last days of August were hazy, thanks to a rainy spell. A damp, yellow hotness squatted over Georgia. I heard that Coop had gone to college in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, leaving both me and his longtime love.