One Summer (15 page)

“Then what does? Are Tilda and J.D. trash?”

“Rachel Elisabeth Grant, Tilda and J.D. are fine people! They’re Negroes, but they’re clean and polite and as honest as can be and as dependable as the day is long! And you know it!”

“Well, then, what about Wiley Brown? He may be a judge, but he drinks a lot more than is good for him, as you well know. In fact, on the day he graduated from high school, he showed up at the auditorium so drunk that he fell asleep and started snoring in the middle of the ceremony. Is he trash? Or the Bowens? Mrs. Bowen ran off to Europe and left her children behind. Are they trash? Or
what about the Walshes? He’s a pediatrician, and she’s a nurse, but she always has a black eye or a bruise somewhere from walking into doors, or so she says. Are they trash? Or how about Rob? He’s divorced. Does that make him trash?”

“Rachel, I declare, God must have given you to me to drive me out of my head! You know perfectly well that none of those people are trash!”

“Then explain to me what trash is, Mother. I want to know. If being poor, or black, or drinking, or being abandoned by a parent, or spouse beating, or being divorced doesn’t do it, I want to know what does.”

Elisabeth spluttered, “I may not be able to describe it, but I know trash when I see trash, and what’s more, so do you!”

Rachel felt herself trembling, on the brink of losing her temper with her mother, which was something she rarely did. Her voice was even as she spoke: “Listen to me, Mother. I am tired of you, and everybody else in this town for that matter, calling Johnny Harris trash. Unless you can explain to me why he is, please don’t do it again!”

“Why, Rachel! What a tone to use with your mother!”

“I’m sorry, Mother. But I mean what I say.”

Elisabeth’s lips thinned, and her eyes narrowed as she glanced appraisingly at her daughter. “There’s been talk around town about you and that boy. I didn’t pay it much mind because you are my daughter and you were raised to know better. But I’m beginning to think that there may be something to it after all. When your father was a young man, before he married me, he was wild and heedless and prone to jump into trouble with both feet. It hurts me to have to tell you that you are getting to be just like him.”

The combined criticism of her and the father she loved stung. Rachel’s grip on her temper slipped a little more, and she cast her mother a cold glance as she turned into their driveway.

“I hope that’s so, Mother. I would certainly hate for the opposite to be true.”

Elisabeth’s eyes widened, and she paled as she stared at her daughter. Chin stubbornly raised, refusing to say or feel she was sorry, Rachel pulled the car under the porte cochere and stopped it with a jerk.

“You need to put the car in park.” Like everyone else who knew her well, Elisabeth was aware of her daughter’s erratic driving habits.

“I’m not stopping. I have an errand to run. You go on in.”

“An errand! You aren’t forgetting that we’re having Sunday dinner at two, are you? We are having guests, as I shouldn’t have to remind you.”

“I’ll be back by two. Please get out, Mother.”

With a sound midway between a snort and a sniff, Elisabeth got out of the car and closed the door behind her with a deliberate quietness that was more eloquent than a slam. Then she leaned down and peered through the passenger-side window at Rachel.

“You are going into town to see that Harris boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Mother, I am. And I may just bring him back to dinner.”

“Rachel!”

Rachel’s eyes glittered as she returned Elisabeth’s look. Her hands clenched around the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles showed white. “And if you are not polite to him, if you do not make him as welcome as any other guest in this house, then I give you my word that I will pack my bags tomorrow and move back into town.”

“Rachel!”

“I mean it, Mother,” Rachel said. “Now, please stand back. I have to go.”

“Rachel!” There was as much hurt as affront in Elisabeth’s voice as she straightened and stepped back. Putting the car into reverse and then swinging it around in a wide
arc, Rachel looked through the rearview mirror and saw honest bewilderment in her mother’s face as the tiny, frail figure stood alone against the background of the huge white house and rolling green fields. But for once in her life she refused to let her mother make her feel guilty. This time she meant what she said.

As it happened, Rachel’s confrontation with her mother served no purpose. When she arrived at the hardware store, Johnny was not in his apartment. She stopped by Long’s, one of two funeral homes in town, and the one that handled services for citizens of lesser importance like Willie Harris—only to find that Johnny wasn’t there, either, and that no arrangements had been made for putting Willie Harris on view, though his funeral was scheduled for ten o’clock the next morning. Rachel thanked Sam Munson, the mortician, and left. A single question burned in her mind: Where was Johnny? Rachel thought of Glenda, and her picture of Johnny alone and grief-stricken underwent a sudden change. Of course he was with Glenda. He had no need for Rachel at all.

Chest tight, Rachel gave up and drove back home. The look of relief on Elisabeth’s face when she showed up alone just in time for dinner was nothing more than salt in her wound.

15

W
hat was left of Willie Harris lay in a closed gray coffin at the front of the small paneled room. Five rows of rickety folding chairs, about forty in all, had been set up by the funeral home for the service. Afterward, the body would be cremated.

Rachel sat in the fourth row with Kay Nelson at her side. Kay, apparently stricken by guilt after the conversation at church, had crept in just as the service got under way. Besides the two women, there were five other mourners: two hard-looking, sleazily dressed young women whom Rachel didn’t know; Don Gillespie, the owner of the house that the Harrises had rented for so many years; and Glenda Wright Watkins with her son Jeremy.

Johnny did not appear. Nor did the other two surviving Harris children.

Glenda’s presence without Johnny came as something of a shock to Rachel. She had called his apartment numerous times since her visit the day before and had even stopped by again late last night and this morning, all to no avail. Johnny was not there. She had assumed he was off with Glenda somewhere. But Glenda sat two rows in front of her, blond head bowed, her hand curled around that of her young son.

If Johnny was not with them, where was he?

Rachel could hardly wait for the service to conclude so that she could speak to the woman. When the final prayer was invoked and the mourners began to file out, Rachel got quickly to her feet. Beside her, Kay stood up, too.

“Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever saw?” Kay whispered to Rachel. “Not one of the children here. Do you suppose he was bad to them when they were growing up?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Rachel answered, somewhat less than truthfully. The first year she had taught him, the sixteen-year-old Johnny had appeared at school with black eyes and split lips often enough that Rachel suspected that his father was beating him. Her concern led her to notice the other Harris children more than she otherwise would have. Big, bulky Buck, two years older than Johnny, had dropped out of school some years before and so was not available for observation. But Grady, a thin, quiet boy three years Johnny’s junior, and Sue Ann, who’d still been in grade school at the time, regularly suffered injuries like Johnny’s. When Rachel had tried to ask Johnny if they were being abused, he had laughed in her face and denied everything—without allaying Rachel’s suspicions by one iota. She turned to her own father for advice on what to do, but Stan had been succinct: Stay out of it. What went on behind closed doors was none of her business.

That pronouncement had provoked one of the few arguments she had ever had with her father.

Despite Stan’s words and Johnny’s denial, Rachel decided that the next time she saw physical marks on any of the Harris children, she would report them to the county child-protective services.

But she never saw such marks again. At the time, Rachel had decided her conclusions had been too hasty. Now, looking back, she wondered if perhaps her questioning of Johnny, reported back to Willie Harris, had been enough to stop it. She hoped so.

“Who are they?” Kay, still whispering, nodded at the
two young girls, one of whom had tears streaming down her face as she turned away from the coffin and walked down the aisle toward them.

“No one I know. Excuse me, please, Kay. I need to talk to someone.”

Rachel caught up with Glenda just before she and Jeremy walked out the door.

“Hello, Jeremy. Hello, Mrs.—Watkins, isn’t it? Do you remember me?” Rachel was unable to keep from surreptitiously looking the other woman over as she spoke. Glenda was wearing a subdued lavender suit. The outfit was inexpensive, the cloth polyester, but its modest lines were flattering to her figure while still appropriate for the occasion. Her voluminous hair was caught up at her nape by a black velvet bow. All in all, Rachel had to conclude that Glenda was nicer looking than she had at first supposed. Probably, by the standards of men, Glenda would be considered much more attractive than Rachel herself. She was tall and slim and blond and worldly looking, with breasts the size of cantaloupes. Rachel caught herself wondering if they were real and awarded herself a mental kick for cattiness.

Jeremy said nothing, just stared up at Rachel warily. He was dressed in clean but faded jeans and a well-pressed T-shirt, suggesting that, unlike Glenda, he owned no more formal clothes. Judging from his demeanor, he suspected that Rachel had waylaid his mother to tattle on him. Rachel sent him a small, reassuring smile that had no apparent effect on his look of mistrust.

“Sure I do. You’re Miss Grant.” Glenda nodded warmly, and her thin face broke into a smile that made her look suddenly years older as her cheeks creased into dozens of sun-caused wrinkles. “Johnny’s teacher friend. I didn’t know you knew Jeremy.”

The glance Jeremy shot Rachel was defiant and imploring at the same time.

“We met through Johnny, didn’t we, Jeremy? And got reasonably well acquainted, I think.” Rachel smiled at Jeremy
again before transferring her attention back to Glenda. “I was wondering, have you seen Johnny? I wanted to express my condolences, but I haven’t been able to locate him.”

Glenda shook her head. “Last time I saw him was Saturday night. We got to my place kinda late, both of us with a pretty good buzz on, you know, and he went straight home ’cause friend or not, I don’t allow no man to spend the night when my kids are there. I had Sunday off, and I spent it with the kids, so I didn’t even hear about Mr. Harris till last night. I thought I’d come today because me and Johnny, we go back a long way, and he don’t have too many people in his corner right now.” She shrugged. “But he ain’t even here. And I cain’t say I’m surprised.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Can we go, Mom?” Jeremy interrupted, tugging on Glenda’s hand. “You said we could go to Burger King.”

“In a minute, Jeremy. You know what I told you about interruptin’.” Glenda smiled apologetically at Rachel. “Kids. Bein’ a teacher, you know how they are. But about Johnny not bein’ here, I don’t blame him. Mr. Harris was real mean to him, to all of ’em, when they was growin’ up. He whupped ’em good, more times than I can remember. Whether it’s disrespectful to the dead or not,” she nodded toward the coffin, “I gotta speak the truth.”

Rachel’s breath caught. “I suspected something of the sort at one time. But I asked Johnny about it, and he denied it.”

Glenda laughed. “He would. That’s Johnny for you.”

“Mom …” There was the beginning of a whine in Jeremy’s voice.

“Just a minute, Jeremy.”

Kay joined them, offering Glenda an impersonal smile. “Rachel, excuse me, but could I beg a ride to my shop from you? I had Jim drop me off.” There was a chasm between Kay and Glenda of which both were fully aware. Like Rachel, Kay was part of the country club crowd,
while Glenda was someone whose life was considered of no account by Tylerville’s more affluent citizens.

“I’ll be glad to give you a ride.” It was an effort, but Rachel thought she masked her impatience at the interruption very well. If Glenda had been about to make any more revelations about Johnny’s early life, she wouldn’t now that Kay had joined them. Rachel knew that as well as if Glenda had spelled it out. And Rachel found herself suddenly eager to learn everything she could about young Johnny Harris. “Kay, I don’t believe you know Glenda Watkins and her son Jeremy. Glenda, this is Kay Nelson.”

Kay nodded in acknowledgment of the introduction. “Are you a family friend of the Harrises?”

“I’m a friend of Johnny’s,” Glenda specified, as if she didn’t care to be closely associated with Johnny’s father.

“A friend, Mom?” Jeremy tittered, and his eyes sparkled teasingly up at his mother. “Is that what you call it? The other night I saw him put his hand on your—”

“Jeremy Anthony Watkins!” Clamping a hand over her son’s mouth in the nick of time, Glenda turned bright red as she cast the other women embarrassed, apologetic looks. “I gotta get some food in this kid fast, before he turns into a real monster. You know how kids are when they haven’t eaten. It was good to see you again, Miss Grant. And nice meetin’ you, Miss Nelson.”