Sweet Dream Baby (20 page)

“In Jacksonville, she took me to the home of her friend. He was a doctor who had known her husband in medical school. I can't tell you his name because he never told me. He talked to me for a while, then he left me alone and talked to Susannah. I sat with a door between me and them and listened to them raise their voices. I don't know what they argued about. I thought about what the doctor had told me. There were risks. They were not all physical. I would worry about what we were going to do. It would plague my mind. He asked me several times if I was sure. All I could think then was that I had to get Morgan Conway out of me. I had to lose the part of me that was him, that had trusted him. And I could never tell my parents. They'd never understand. They'd think it was about them, not about me. They'd think about Widow Rock and what I had done to their place.

“So I said yes, and the man took me to his office. It was empty, and we went in the back way. He did things to me while Susannah held my hand. He gave me a drug to take my mind away, and I didn't think of anything until I was halfway back to Widow Rock and the pain started. Susannah gave me some pills she'd taken from the storeroom at her husband's office, and told me what would happen next, and how I'd feel, and told me what was normal and what was not. And I got in my car where we had hidden it, and I drove the rest of the way back to Widow Rock and told my parents I'd had a fine time in Panama City. I told them the water was lovely, and the gulls were gray and white with pink beaks, and they swung on the wind, and dove down and took french fries from my hand while I walked on the beach. Then I went up to my room and slept for two days.

“When Mama came to my room worried, I told her I was just very tired. When the sheets were stained, I washed them in the bathroom sink and dried them with a towel. And I got better, and nobody ever knew…”

Behind me, she shudders. She squeezes my arm hard again, and digs her nails in. Her voice comes back smaller, colder, and it sounds strange like a voice from a radio playing in another room. “…But, Killer, when it storms, I can't help it. I'm afraid. I cry for someone lost.

“I asked Susannah about it the day we went to see her. The day she sent you to the kitchen for cookies. She told me there was a storm while I was lying on the doctor's table in Jacksonville. She said it was violent, and water flew straight against the windows, and the lights went out for a few minutes, and the doctor couldn't use his instruments. She said I didn't notice it. I was asleep and smiling through the whole thing. She didn't see how I could know there was a storm.”

She pulls her lips back from my ear, and I can feel her breathing change, and I know that a cold, tired spirit has come out of her, and I know it's the spirit of her trouble. I know she'll be better, because now the spirit is mine, too. She's told me, and she's better now. But I have to ask one more question.

I say, “It's Morgan Conway you cry for? He's the one lost?”

She says, “No, Killer, it's not him. When the storms come, I cry for my baby. I know he's out there somewhere on the storm. He's flying the wind and fighting the rain, and he's trying to get back to me, and he can't find the way, and I can't find the words to call him home to me.”

“It's only a dream,” I say, and I feel her sigh against my neck. It's a stupid thing I said, but I don't know how to help. The storm is climbing the highest place. The wind screams like mad dogs, and the rain pounds the window like fists that rattle the panes in their moldings. I look out at the black, the wet, the confusion of the trees, and I wish I knew the secret words to call a baby home.

And I remember what my mother said when she knew I would fly south to my father's family. “You'll fly on the wind like the spirits of my ancestors.” I wonder if my mother's pain comes because she can't call her people home to rest. Because they're lost out there on the wind. I can't think of the words to bring my Aunt Delia's baby home, so I reach back and put my hand on her face, and I draw her tears down her cheeks and hold them in my hand.

The next day it's hot, and the ground steams from the rain, and the sun burns water from the street in shimmering waves. My Aunt Delia sleeps late. I go to her room and look at her. She's lying with her face to the window, and her arm over her eyes. The radio is playing soft the way she likes it late at night.

I go downstairs for breakfast. Grandma and Grandpa Hollister are already eating. They look angry. Marvadell brings my eggs, and she looks angry, too. Grandpa tells me he's tired of me coming down late for breakfast. Why can't I get up on time and not put the household into such an uproar? He says I'm starting to act just like Delia, like a teenager. Grandma puts her fork down hard and tells him not to be so harsh with me. I'm just a boy, she says, and I deserve a little rest and some fun in the summer. I'll be leaving soon. I'll be going back to school. Marvadell lets the kitchen door swing shut, and we hear, “Humph!”

Grandpa wipes his mouth with his napkin. He looks at me and then mops his forehead with it, too. I know Grandma doesn't like that. She thinks he's crude and not as good as the men in her family. I know he thinks the men in her family are all drunkards and wasters even if they went to Vanderbilt University. Grandpa Hollister's eyes tell me he's thinking about me leaving soon. He throws his napkin in his plate and goes to the hall secretary. He unlocks it, takes out his sheriff things, and leaves by the front door.

Grandma comes around and stands behind me. She puts her hands on my shoulders and leans down and says, “I'm sorry, Travis. We shouldn't have scenes at breakfast. It gets the day off to a sad start. It's the heat. And we've had so many storms this summer. Don't worry about it.”

All I can say is, “Yes, ma'am. I won't worry.”

But the day is already started wrong. Outside, the steam rising from the ground makes me feel like I'm swimming in hot water. I go to the backyard and shoo the birds and eat some grapes. They're sweet and ripe. Eddie, Marvadell's son, comes out of the woods at the back of our lot. He sees me and stops his strutting walk. He stands there watching me in his purple pants and pointy black shoes. He smiles and puts his hand in his pocket, feeling his push-button knife.

I go to the front yard to leave him room to visit Marvadell and get her money. After I hear the backdoor bang shut, I go to the side of the house and look up at my Aunt Delia's open window. I can hear the radio playing faint, and I know she's still asleep. I walk down to the park and look at what the rain did to the tennis court. The clay is washed all the way out into the grass near the Confederate monument. The white chalk lines are gone. The net is wet and steaming like everything else.

Some green shingles are missing from the roof of the Presbyterian Church across the street. The whole town looks tired and beaten down. Times like this I wish there were kids around so I could make friends. But I know it's too late for that. Even if there were kids, I'm leaving too soon to get to know them. And I'm my Aunt Delia's best friend now, and that's taking up most of my time.

I walk back to our house looking at the sky. A strange, gray-yellow light glows from behind the clouds. My dad says it's the light you see before a tornado comes. But that was in Omaha. I don't know what that light means here in Widow Rock. People are staying indoors, away from the steamy heat. As far as I can see, there are no cars and no people. I wonder if it's gonna rain again.

When I walk into our driveway, I see a cigarette butt over by my Aunt Delia's car. I go over and look at it. It's wet but not falling apart. Somebody dropped it last night after the rain stopped. I don't know when it stopped, but I know it was late, late at night. I look into my Aunt Delia's white Chevy, and there's something lying on the seat. My heart starts to rattle even before my eyes are sure what it is. I open the car door a few inches and look back at the house. Nobody. I open the door all the way. It's a small white envelope. I don't know why it scares me so much.

I try to tell myself it's my Aunt Delia's. She left it there. But she hasn't been in her car since we got out of it together yesterday. Someone put the envelope there last night while my Aunt Delia and me were sleeping in my bed. Someone who smokes. I know it's trouble, and I know I have to take it to her.

• • •

My Aunt Delia doesn't wake up easy mornings after it storms. I go to her bedside and lay my hand gently on her hair. I stroke her black hair, and she sighs, and it's almost like a cat purring, and then her eyes come open, and I like it that she meets me with a smile. But then her mouth pinches, and her eyes go hard, and she says, “Something's wrong.”

She sits up fast, and my hand falls from her hair, and I show her the envelope. “I found it in your car. Somebody must've put it in there last night.”

She blinks and takes the envelope and holds it to her chest, but she doesn't open it. She rubs some sleep from her eyes with her free hand and pulls her legs up under her. She looks at me hard and says, “Tell me again where you found it.”

I tell her. She puts the envelope down on the bed and her eyes are bright awake. She looks like she did the day she drove the boat down the river, like she's looking off into the distance for what might come around the bend. “All right,” she says, “open it.”

I do. There's a piece of notebook paper inside, the kind kids use in school. The words are written in pencil. It's a boy's handwriting. The note says,

Delia,

Meet me tonight behind the gas station, 9:00. I'll be waiting in my car. Don't bring the little boy you like so much. Come or the whole town will know how you like to swim.

There's no name at the bottom.

“It's him,” my Aunt Delia says.

“Yeah.” My mouth is dry. I can see her trying to swallow and the next word sticking in her throat.

“What do you think he wants?”

She gives me a look I've never seen from her before. It's the look a dog gives you after you kick it. It's the look Marvadell had on her face when Eddie walked into her kitchen and took the money from her purse. I look away at the window.

She says, “What do you
think
he wants?” Her voice is so low I can hardly hear it. It's like she's talking to herself. “He wants
me
. He wants me to…do it with him. If I do, then he'll keep his filthy mouth shut.”

We talk about it for an hour, until we have to go down for lunch. We talk until Marvadell comes to the bottom of the stairs and hollers up, “You chirrins come on down here an' eat! Don't make me wait fo you!”

I ask her what she's going to do, and she says she doesn't know. I don't want her to go. I don't say it yet, but she knows I don't, and she knows why, I guess. I keep trying to think about what's best for her and not for me. I keep asking her what she's going to do, but she keeps talking about him.

“I just didn't think he was like that,” she says. She looks at me like I can tell her what he's like. Because I'm a guy.

She says, “Under all that tough guy, greaser attitude, I thought he was good. I thought he was just somebody people didn't understand.”

I want to say I know how he could want her so much. Enough to make him do this thing. How he could get so confused wanting her, he'd hurt her to get what he wants. But I can't tell her that.

I say, “Well he's not who you thought he was.” I pick up the note from the bedspread where it lies between our knees. I say, “
Here's
who he is.”

She turns to the window and looks at the trees. Even when it's hot and still, they move. If you really listen, you hear it. The branches and the leaves fidget and fuss and rub together because they're still growing. For a while, we listen to the oak tree talk.

Finally, she says, “I have to go. Maybe I can talk to him. Make him see what he's doing.”

“You can't go.” Now I've said it, what she knew I'd say. She looks at me. Her love for me is in her eyes, but it's there only a second. I see it change to pity, then to anger. She says, “Killer, you just don't know how it is for me. You don't know what my life will be like here if he tells about me and you.”

“What if you go with him, and he tells about that, too?”

Her eyes tell me she's thought about it. She says, “I'll just have to take that chance.”

Then she says the thing I hate. “If he likes me enough, maybe he'll do what I want.” She looks straight into my eyes, and her voice goes low and sweet as she says it, and I know she's not just talking to me. She's practicing for him.

I can see she wants to stop talking now. I say it quick. “I'll go with you. Let me go with you. If I go, maybe he won't…”

She smiles slow and sorry. “I can't do that, Killer. You know it wouldn't work.” She goes over to the vanity and sits down and looks at herself in the mirror. She turns up the radio a little, and it's Jerry Lee singing, “Breathless.” She says to the mirror, “But I can't do it without your help. You've got to help me tonight, Killer.”

That's when I think the awful thing. Maybe she wants to go with him. Maybe a part of her wants to go. I love her. I'm her only friend. She held me in the river. She let me touch her. She showed me what love is. I have to say yes. I have to say I'll help. “Okay,” I say, and Marvadell calls up from the foot of the stairs, “You chirrins come on down here an' eat!”

• • •

The rest of the day goes by like the week before Christmas. I keep watching the clock and trying to think of something new to say, something so she won't go, but my Aunt Delia's eyes are shut to me. They say she's made up her mind. She's looking at the far away now, past tonight. She's trying to see how things will be for her after she meets him tonight.

All day the thing is big inside my chest. It's the true thing I have for my Aunt Delia. We listen to the radio in her room. We don't talk much, but the radio talks to me about love. Birmingham and Tallahassee play the songs that say they understand who I am and how I feel.

At eight-thirty, we walk downstairs like we planned. We stop in the living room where Grandpa Hollister sits with his newspaper like a curtain across his face, and Grandma Hollister watches Ed Sullivan. We look at
Life
for a while like we always do, and then my Aunt Delia stretches and yawns and says, “I'm bored. Travis, let's you and me drive over to Warrington for Cokes.” She always says it this way. Then she waits to see what they say. It's her way of asking without asking. We wait. Grandpa Hollister rattles his paper and clears his throat, and Grandma Hollister laughs at some Hungarian unicyclists balancing dinner plates from broom handles on their chins. We walk slowly to the front door. When my Aunt Delia opens it, Grandma Hollister calls, “You two be careful and come home at a reasonable hour.”

My Aunt Delia calls over her shoulder, “All right, Mama.”

We have a plan.

My Aunt Delia drives the white Chevy to the place behind Dr. Cohen's house and parks it. She leaves the keys in the ignition so the radio can play for me. She says, “You'll be all right here, Killer. If anybody comes, just turn off the radio and hunker down in the seat. I'll get back here no later than eleven.”

She gets out and stands in the moonlight outside the window. She leans in, and her hair falls around her face, and I smell the shampoo and perfume I like so much. The moon behind her makes a glow around her face, a halo, and I think: Night Angel. The halo makes it hard to see her eyes. Her skin is white, and she's wearing the dark red lipstick she only puts on after we leave the house. Her white blouse has a Peter Pan collar and no sleeves. She's wearing her faded jeans and her white tenny pumps. She looks prettier to me than she's ever looked before.

I can't help it. I say, “Please let me go with you.” I lean close and smell her hair.

She shakes her head, and I'm glad I can't see her eyes. She says, “What would you do with me tonight, Killer? Think about it. What would you do?”

I want to ask again, but I don't. I want to say please again, but I don't.

She reaches in and puts her hand on my cheek, and her fingers burn my face with the names of our secrets. She strokes me and leans in and gives me a kiss. She says, “Thanks for covering for me, Killer. You're a great guy.” Then she's gone, and I'm sitting with the taste of her lips on mine and the radio playing, “Save the Last Dance for Me.”