Spelldown (17 page)

“Sacrificium intellectus?”

“Sacrificing your intellect. I’ve always wanted to do something truly great, to paint a masterpiece, write songs, or be an actress, but I don’t know if I ever will.” Mrs. Harrison pauses, sucks hard on her straw, draining the rest of the soda, and looks at me the whole time like she’s aggravated with me.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“No, Jelly Bean, you haven’t done anything wrong.” She lifts her bangs and points to her forehead. “See this little wrinkle on the bottom? That’s where I keep my dreams for you tucked away.”

“Dreams for me?” I say, then lower my head, feeling shy all of a sudden.

Her finger lifts my chin. “Here’s the truth, honey. Life is a runaway train. If you don’t want to be another dumb passenger, you got to put on the conductor’s hat.”

“You looked in a crystal ball or something?” I ask.

“No, I’m looking in your blue eyes. You’re so intelligent, it’s frightening. But your heart’s so hungry, I worry that, once you get a crumb or two of affection, you might end up throwing away your intellect just to get another crumb—before you even get to figure out your
raison d’être.”

“What makes you think I’m like that?”

“Because I was just like you.” She smiles. The dimple on
her right cheek is so deep, I want to crawl into it, but I just sit there chewing on a pickle, feeling adored.

Owl-faced Mr. Higgins walks up to the table. “Hello, ladies. Sandwiches okay?”

“Delicious,” Mrs. Harrison says.

“Just fine, thank you,” I say, hoping he’ll go away, but he puts his hand on the back of the leather booth and leans toward me.

“Well, Miss Karlene, you going to bring the spotlight down on Red Clover next week by winning the National Spelling Bee?”

“Volento Deo,”
I say, winking at Mrs. Harrison.

“Volento what?”

“Volento Deo. That’s Latin for ‘God willing,’” I say, then sip my Coke.

“How about spelling
apothecary
for me?” he says.

Mrs. Harrison says in her joking voice, “Excuse me, my dear, kind sir, but Karlene’s taking the day off from spelling—”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind,” I say. “Apothecary.
A-p-o-t-h-e-c-a-r-y.”

Mr. Higgins grins and says, “Got one more for you. How about
prophylactic?”

“Prophylactic.
P-r-o-p-h-y-l-a-c-t-i-c.”
I spell it proudly. Serious spellers never snicker at any word. In 1937 a girl named Waneeta won the National Spelling Bee by spelling
promiscuous
.

“Excellent. Good luck next week,” he says, and walks away.

“He’s a strange little man,” Mrs. Harrison says.

“Mr. Higgins can be a pain in the butt, but he has some great drug store words. Last week I had to spell
pharmaceutical
and
hemorrhoid.”

Mrs. Harrison laughs. “Let’s get out of here.” She pays the bill.

When we get outside, a small line has formed at the Midway Theater across the street. “Jack and I saw this movie a while back. It’s melodramatic. Prepare to have your tears jerked.” She hands me a small cellophane package of Kleenex.

I stuff the tissue into my shirt pocket. “Thanks for lunch, Mrs. Harrison. See you tomorrow.”

“You sure you got a ride home?”

“Yep. Kelly will take me.”

I cross the street and wait in line at the theater. Mrs. Harrison heads toward the Ballet Barn to pick up Celia. I try not to think about Mama, wearing her hairnet, working her butt off in Weave Room No. 9. But since Daddy’s been at Winding Springs, Mama works every Saturday, because we need the money. Besides, she’s walking on air, thinking about boarding that plane to Washington, D.C., on Monday.

Inside the theater, I politely elbow my way through the crowd to the concession stand, noticing nobody is wearing western clothes or cowboy boots. Not yet, anyway. In Red Clover, fads take a while to catch on.

Billy Ray is standing behind the concession stand wearing a goofy paper hat. Every job, I figure, has at
least one humiliating aspect. Billy Ray’s main job is projectionist, but when there’s a big crowd, he helps with the concessions. “Help you, mademoiselle?” he says, looking happy to see me.

“I’ll take a Coke,
s’il vous plait.”
My stomach feels a little achy.

He hands me the Coke. I give him a quarter.

“I like your sheriff’s outfit,” he says as if he means it.

“I like your hat,” I say as if I don’t.

We stand there grinning at each other. Billy Ray’s been coming over on Sunday afternoons to call out spelling words, and I help him practice his French.

“Come by and see me upstairs between movies,” he says.

“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.” I figure it’s best to keep a boy off balance.

I sit in the middle of the third row from the front. My cowboy boots stick to the gunky mixture of Pepsi, candy, and popcorn spilled on the floor over the years. The theater is crammed with children trying out their bad manners on one another, but when Tom and Jerry scamper across the screen, the mob shuts up. The stupid cartoon isn’t funny anymore—I have seen it twenty times, at least. I turn around and squint at the projectionist booth above the balcony and see Billy Ray’s shadow flickering on the wall.

The minute George Hamilton appears on the screen as Mr. Hank Williams, my heart feels squeezed. He is so handsome, it makes my eyes water. His lips are thin, not full
and luscious like Ringo’s, but he has a sad, sexy smile. And that little beauty mark above his lip—I want to rub my finger all over it.

Hank Williams tears through his life like a tornado ripping up a field of daisies. I want to holler
No, Hank
a hundred times at the sad mess he is making of his talent. Hank was way too famous for his own good: people pulling and tugging at him, adoring him, wanting him to sing just one more song, sign one more autograph. Seeing the tragedy of Hank’s life makes me think that the best time to be famous is when you’re dead. Compared to Hank Williams’s, Daddy’s drinking doesn’t seem so terrible. At least he did his drinking in Red Clover, instead of gallivanting all over the country like Hank, who also started popping pain pills. Poor Hank Williams had an awful case of the can’t-help-its.

George Hamilton plays the role perfectly. He looks hollow, as if he already knows his dark future. I feel like I am sitting in the backseat of that Cadillac convertible with Hank, my thigh rubbing against his. I accompany Hank on his wild journey straight into hell, mesmerized by his hopeless eyes and his twangy, heartbroken voice. By the end of the movie, I’ve soaked every tissue in the pack.

As soon as the Three Stooges movie starts, I feel restless as a caged monkey. My butt isn’t made to sit through a double feature, so I get up and walk up the aisle. The lobby is empty except for the girl working the concession stand. Her back is turned, so I lift the threadbare red-velvet cord that hangs across the staircase and tiptoe up the stairs to the balcony,
which is empty. I walk over to the projection room and knock gently on the door.

Billy Ray opens it and motions for me to come in. He lifts a reel of film out of a dented can and lays it on the table beside the projector. Then he removes some old movie magazines from the chair and I sit down. My knee is about six inches away from his. Billy Ray smells like popcorn popped in British Sterling. I want to chew him up.

“You nervous about the spelling bee next week?” he says, all thoughtful.

“Nervous? Who, me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“I feel like I’ve been eating pinecones.”

The room is hot and stuffy. I feel electricity flowing from his knee to mine.
Now would be a good time to be kissed
is the thought I try to transmit from my thumping heart into his thick Boy Scout’s head. Billy Ray looks at me with tortured eyes, then flips a switch on the fan. I feel a hot jolt of power climbing up my spine, a delicious feeling that I can make him do things against his will if I set my mind to it.

“Got something on your cheek.” I lean in close and rub an imaginary smudge off his left cheek.

Billy Ray’s eyes widen and he sighs heavily. We stare at each other. Then he lifts my chin and kisses me gently on the lips once, then again—not so gently. His lips taste like bubble gum. He stops kissing me, stands up, and pulls me out of the chair. His breath is raggedy. His arms circle me, hugging me close. My nose snuggles against the smooth skin
of his neck. I feel his Adam’s apple move when he swallows, and I lick his clavicle once, then again. Moaning, he lifts my chin and sweetly nibbles my lips. Mercury shoots to the top of my thermometer. I pull away gently, feeling hot and jittery.
Sacrificium intellectus
flashes in neon letters in my head, which reminds me that I have a National Spelling Bee to win!

“I better get back. See you later,” I force my lips to say.

“Uh, okay,” he says with a look that says
Please don’t go
.

By the time I get halfway down the stairs, my legs feel rubbery and the lower-right side of my stomach feels like a switchblade has been thrust into it. I’ve probably worried a hole in it. I stumble down the stairs and into the bathroom, which is empty. I look into the old mirror with lipstick scrawled across it. My face is the color of chalk dust. I splash water on it, and another sharp pain takes my breath away. Something inside me has busted loose. The room spins wildly, sucks me into a spiral. I slump to the gray linoleum floor.

The next thing I know, Kelly is lifting me from the bathroom floor and whisking me through the lobby doors held open by Billy Ray. Kelly’s taxi sits idling in front of the theater. Billy Ray opens the door to the backseat and crawls in, then Kelly lifts me into the backseat and lays my head in Billy Ray’s lap.

“It’s going to be all right.” Kelly squats outside the car door. “Your mama working?”

“Yeah.”

“After I take you to the hospital, I’ll pick her up.” Kelly
gets into the driver’s seat and slams the door.

Billy Ray has a v-shaped scar underneath his chin. I watch it move as he talks. “Don’t worry, Karlene. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.” Each word sounds chewed up by fear, as if he thinks his kiss made me sick. I feel comforted being so close to Billy Ray, but I also feel scared. An image of a deer crumpled in a muddy ditch lodges in my mind. I try to replace it with an image of myself riding my white dream horse, but I can’t. A sharp pain comes from deep inside. I cry out for my mama. Billy Ray says, “Shh, shh.”

At the hospital, I try to stay calm as I answer the doctor’s questions, sitting up on the gurney. Finally, Kelly escorts Mama into the emergency room, and I burst into tears when I see the worried look on her face. Billy Ray greets her and says he and Kelly will be in the waiting room.

Mama walks up to me trying to smile, then puts her arm around my shoulders. “You feeling any better?”

I bite my lip and shake my head no, tears trickling down my face.

“Mrs. Bridges, we’ve got a real sick girl on our hands,” the doctor says. “How has Karlene been feeling the last day or two?”

“She’s been complaining about her stomach. I gave her some Pepto-Bismol. I thought it was just nerves because of the spelling bee. She’s usually a big eater, but she hasn’t been eating much the last couple days.” Mama wrings her hands, but her voice has that everything’s-going-to-be-all-right sound.

The doctor presses three, big fat fingers into the right side of my belly.

“That hurt much?”

“No,” I say.

Then he presses harder and it hurts like hell. I grit my teeth and wince. I want to slap his stupid face. Instead, I vomit greenish-pinkish lumpy stuff all over his shiny brown shoes.

“Nurse!” the doctor yells.

The nurse rushes over, grabs a towel, and wipes his shoes and the floor.

“Swish this around in your mouth. Don’t swallow it.” The doctor hands me a cup of water, then places his hand across my forehead.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mama asks.

“Well, she’s got nausea, loss of appetite, a slight fever, and tenderness in her abdomen. Sounds like it could be appendicitis and …”

“Appendicitis,” I say.
“A-p-p-e-n-d-i-c-i-t-i-s.”

He continues as if I weren’t there. “We’re going to watch her for another hour, and if things continue like this, we’ll need to perform an appendectomy or …”

“Appendectomy.
A-p-p-e-n-d-e-c-t-o-m-y
. Appendectomy.”

“Shh, honey, please,” Mama says. Every ounce of color has drained from her face. “Operate? Isn’t there anything else you can do?”

“I’m afraid not. When is the spelling bee?”

“It starts on Tuesday. Our flight is on Monday.”

The doctor looks at me mercifully. “I’m sorry, Karlene. It doesn’t look too good. I’ll check back with you in a little while,” he says, and leaves.

My heart pumps sludge. A thick, yellowy silence fills the room. I watch Mama’s face as fear turns into disappointment. But she tousles my hair and says, “I need to make a phone call. You just lie here and rest,” she says, and walks out of the room.

The happy tone in Mama’s voice doesn’t sound sincere, but it’s a balm to my soul not to hear the black disappointment she must be feeling deep in her bones. I wonder if they’ll let the King of Mothballs from Sumter go to the nation’s capital to take my place. The thought of it makes me want to cut out my own appendix. I have never felt so picked on in my pathetic life. The words
terrigeneous
and
teleology
and
truculent
and
taciturn
taste bitter in my mouth. I wish I could spit them out into one worthwhile sentence. But most of all, I wish I could unplug myself from the Big Something Out There That Causes Every Damn Thing.

“Hey, how you feeling?” Billy Ray’s standing beside my bed, holding a bud vase with a single pink rose.

I sit up and roll my neck. “Uh, I must have fallen asleep.”

“Got something for you.” He hands me the vase.

I hold the rose to my nose and sniff, but it has no smell.

“Your mama called Preacher Smoot and he’s called together a prayer circle to handle the problem. Guess you
better be expecting a miracle.” He smiles like a true believer.