The Orange Blossom Special (25 page)

“You know my dad?” Huddie was startled.

“No, but I'm guessing.”

“My dad says that you go into the army a pussy and you come out a man. He says the only people who don't go into the military are communists and Jews and that most of them are faggots anyway.”

Charlie asked, “How does your dad feel about his son saving two black old ladies from a rowdy group of segregationists?”

“Nothing personal, Mr. Landy, but you must think I've got no sense in me at all. There's a lot of stuff I don't tell my father, and what happened that day would be top of the list.”

“Do you think your father ever thinks about you getting killed if you went into the army?”

Huddie leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands together. They stared in silence as two men got out of a truck across the way and unloaded a half a dozen boxes with the word
Florsheims
in big black type. Underneath it, in a hastily crayoned script, were the words
penny loafers.
Finally Charlie spoke. “My mother wants me to stay in Gainesville forever and run this liquor store. I don't want to make her unhappy, but I know there's more to life than this.” He pointed to the broken window. “It's coming time for me to leave. Finally, it's our lives. You know what I mean?”

They watched the deliverymen get back into their truck. Huddie put his empty can of beer under his chair. He pulled a Zippo lighter and a crushed pack of Lucky Strikes from his back pocket and offered Charlie a smoke. Charlie liked everything about smoking: the flicking sound of the lighter as the flint caught fire, the way the tip of the cigarette turned the color of bubbling lava when it was first inhaled, the smell of burnt tobacco. People with cigarettes looked cool and reflective, as if in swallowing the smoke they had ingested some profound secret. He wished it didn't burn his throat and make him choke. Smoking kept your hands busy and required attention. It passed as an activity which would have been perfect at a time like this when there was nothing left to say.

“I don't have to tell Crystal that we ever talked about any of this,” said Charlie. “And as far as I'm concerned, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have for a brother-in-law.”

For the first time that afternoon, Huddie Harwood smiled broadly. “I might like to marry her just so I can be related to you,” he said.

“H
UDDIE
. W
HAT A JERK
,” said Dinah later that night, when Charlie told her that he'd seen him that afternoon. They were parked at their favorite spot near High Springs.

“He's not really,” said Charlie. “He's kind of decent, if a little mixed up.”

“I guess I feel protective about Crystal. I just worry that he'll go off with one of those irritating Little Miss Pep Clubs and break her heart.”

“I think you've got him wrong, Dinah. I think he really likes her.”

“He better,” she said.

Charlie wasn't ready to talk to Dinah about his conversation with Huddie that afternoon and how much it had meant to him. He wasn't even sure he knew why it had, other than it stirred something inside of him, something he couldn't wait to talk about to Ella. But not to Dinah, not now.

“So have you told Crystal about us?” he asked.

“What should I tell her?” she teased.

“That her brother has fallen for her best friend and that she's turned his whole life upside down, though nobody would know it to look at him. You could tell her that for starters.”

Dinah put her hand on his thigh. They kissed. They kissed again, pressing their lips so close together that the next day his lips were swollen and bruised. This time, their bodies knew what to do, where to go. And once again, it was Charlie who stopped them just when he felt he might lose control.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, his mind drunk with the smell of her. “I can't. I can't now.”

“Later maybe?” Dinah asked.

“No, I'm serious. You're not some girl to have sex with. To me it would have all these implications, responsibilities, and I just need to figure out a couple of things first. Does that make any sense?”

“Have
you
told her?”

“Have I told who what?” Now Dinah wasn't making any sense.

“Have
you
told Crystal about us?”

“No, but I'll make a deal with you. You tell Crystal tonight and I'll pick you up tomorrow at one and you can tell me everything she said.”

“Deal,” said Dinah. “Then you have to tell your mother.”

W
HEN
D
INAH CAME
home that night, Tessie was out with Barone, and Crystal was with Huddie. Eddie was only vaguely interested in her arrival. “Hi, kitten face,” she said, picking him up by the scruff of his neck and placing him on her lap. “I might as well tell you,” she said, holding his paw in her hand. “I love Charlie Landy.” Eddie stared into her eyes and slightly cocked his head as if what she was saying were the most interesting thing he'd ever heard. “Can you believe it? Charlie Landy! And he loves me too. We've made out.” She lowered her voice. “Here's the weird part. I'd go all the way with him in a minute. He's the one who won't.”

Eddie had heard quite enough. He squirmed off her lap, and made a soft thud as the five toes of his front paws and the four of his hind paws hit the wooden floor.

“Thanks a lot,” she called after him. “Gee, I'm not having a lot of luck with boys tonight, am I?”

She brushed her teeth and got into her pajamas. As she lay in her bed, the same bed she'd been sleeping in since she was ten years old, she remembered how big this bed used to seem to her. In her worst days, it was her world: the miles and miles of cotton sheets, and the worn ribbon around the edges of her blue blanket, her flat pillow with the brown sweat stains in the middle indented part. These were the parameters of her safe place, the place she longed for during the day at school and where she retreated gratefully and willingly in the
late afternoons. The outside world in those days was distant and scary and her connections to it were as fragile as spider legs. Now this bed was too small—too short for her long legs, too cramped for her oversized dreams. The things she'd done with Charlie, they were womanly things, not girl things. She loved him. She was in love with a boy and yearned to have sex with him, even marry him. Could the little girl who so often hid in this bed ever have imagined she'd have these thoughts? She wondered about her father and what he'd say about all this, though it embarrassed her to think that he would know. Would he even recognize her, so grown up? She supposed that he would. Just because he was dead didn't mean he'd lose sight of her. If she saw him now, would he be fatter, have less hair, be stooped over, or would he look the way he had the last time she saw him?

Jeez, it was past midnight. Where was Crystal? Dinah wished she'd come home already. She'd force herself to stay awake until she did.

An hour later, Crystal tiptoed into their bedroom and slowly, silently started to undress. Dinah watched her for a while, pretending to be asleep, then said in a hushed voice, “Don't be quiet on my account.”

“Holy moley!” Crystal jumped. “You might warn a person before you go spying on them in the dark.”

“I wasn't spying, I was just resting,” laughed Dinah. “So how was your date?”

“Huddie.” said Crystal, her voice melting. “I love him so much. If I tell you something, you promise not to tell anyone?”

“Promise.”

“Huddie and me, we're talking about getting married. Not right away, of course, but after I go to college.”

In the gray shadows of the night, Dinah could see Crystal's profile.
Her eyes were half closed and she was smiling as if she were listening to beautiful music. “Have you and Huddie done it?” whispered Dinah. “You know, gone all the way?”

Crystal didn't change her expression. After a time, Dinah asked her again. “C'mon, you can tell me. You've done it, haven't you?”

“Huddie and I love each other, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Crystal devoured mushy romance comics and it was right out of those comic books, the way she talked about Huddie. Normally, it drove Dinah crazy, but tonight she was so caught up in her own melodrama she didn't even notice. Instead, she shared an intimacy of her own. “If I stay a virgin any longer, I swear I'll break out all over. Does it hurt the first time?”

“The thing is, you're so passionate that even if it hurts a little, you don't care.”

“Mmm,” said Dinah, curling on her side and placing her hands between her knees. “It sounds wonderful.”

“It is wonderful,” said Crystal. “Huddie is wonderful. I am head over heels.”

“That's great, Crystal, it really is. He seems, um, nice.” Dinah was suddenly out of the comic books and back into real life.

“
Phh.
‘Nice.' I know you think he's just some dumb jock.”

“No, really. Charlie thinks he's terrific. And he was so brave when he rescued him and Ella and her friend.”

“Yeah he was. But how do you know Charlie thinks he's terrific?”

“He told me.”

“Since when do you and Charlie have so much to talk about?” Her voice was chilly. Crystal didn't like the way she'd said Charlie's name; something about the way it lingered on her tongue and came out in three syllables instead of two. “Cha-ar-lie.”

Now it was Dinah's turn to get comic-book coy. “There's something I've been wanting to tell you. It's about Charlie and me. We've been seeing each other. You know, privately.”

“Privately? What do you mean you're seeing Charlie privately?”

“We've been out on dates. I've been having lunch at the store with him for about a year. Stuff like that.” Crystal was jolted out of her Huddie haze. Dinah could see she was blinking hard, trying to hold back tears. Charlie was her brother, the one normal, living person in her family whom she liked. Of course she'd want to keep him to herself. How could Dinah have not thought of that before?

“Stuff like that,” repeated Crystal, as if each word were an invasion. “Exactly how much of him have you seen
privately?”

So Charlie had betrayed her too. She imagined their conversations: “Poor dumb Crystal, she doesn't notice what's going on right before her own eyes.” Even in the dark, her anger was palpable.

“For Christ's sake, Crystal, I was going to tell you. I've been in love with him for years. It's only just recently that I found he loves me back.”

“You're in love with Charlie?” she asked incredulously. “Were you waiting until you were married and had kids before either one of you told me?”

“Oh come on, Crystal, we just wanted to tell you when the time was right.”

“Does everyone know but me?”

“No,” said Dinah. “Just Ella.”

“What about my mother?”

“We're waiting on that. You know, saving the best for last.”

“No offense, but I don't think you're what my mother has in mind for Charlie.”

Dinah tried to make her voice sound normal. “What does your mother have in mind for Charlie?”

“I'm not sure,” said Crystal, turning on her side so she was facing Dinah. “But I'm guessing it's not someone who is practically his sister.”

“I know, it's weird,” said Dinah.

“It's weird all right.”

Lost in their private thoughts, the girls began drifting off into sleep. “I'll bet your dad would like Huddie very much,” Dinah whispered.

Crystal whispered back, “Your dad would love Charlie to death, I know he would. Umm, I didn't mean to say it quite that way.”

T
HIS
S
UNDAY MORNING,
as on the two previous Sundays since the Harmon's incident three weeks earlier, Charlie went with Ella to the Old Stone Baptist Church. Since the rock was thrown through his window, he'd been receiving threatening notes and hang-up phone calls. This church was one of the few places in town where he felt safe. On his first visit, Reverend Potts even talked about him in his sermon.

“We endure our struggles with dignity and pride,” he had said. “As humans are, we are limited by fear and trepidation, yet we are also blessed with the will of the ages—to survive and carry on. All of us, God's soldiers, are marching to His command. There are no heroes in His eyes. The only thing He demands is that we do our best and receive grace as it is given to us. Yesterday afternoon, during the unpleasant occurrences downtown with which you are all familiar, grace appeared in the form of a young man who had the courage to transcend his own nature and put his life in peril in order to protect two elders of this congregation. Had it not been for Charlie Landy . . .” Reverent Potts opened his large pink palm in Charlie's direction . . . “Lord only knows what would have happened to our cherished sisters Ella Sykes and Pauline Brown. We
give thanks for their safety and his presence. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Landy into our hearts and our prayers.”

Maybe it was his six-foot-three-inch frame that caused the reverend's slight stoop, or maybe he was swayed by all his years and what he had seen with his hard mahogany eyes. Reverend Jeremiah Potts was a leader in the community, one of the few black men whose voice was heard by all. To the white people of Gainesville, he was a man who could be reasoned with, a man whose wisdom and poise demanded respect. To his congregation, he was exemplary: a leader and a sage. He chose his words carefully and never said more than was necessary. After the service, Charlie felt the urge to talk with him. “Thank you for what you said in there, but there was nothing I did that anyone else wouldn't do in the same circumstance,” he said. The reverend had folded his hands together as if he were washing them, then moved his lips before he spoke. “There's a light that shines on you, Mr. Landy. Time is too precious. Don't waste it.”