The Undertaker's Daughter (33 page)

As comfortable as I had always been with adults, it turned out they were pretty comfortable around me as well. By the time I entered high school they let their hair down a little and sometimes indulged their loose tongues. They told me about the cracks, the weak seams, and the dirt that accumulated around the fringes of good society. The doctor’s daughter pulled her hair out and
banged her head against the wall, and he didn’t know what to do about it. The dentist’s wife lowered the shades during the day and placed empty bottles in the garbage at night. A preacher’s wife drove to Greenville frequently to go shopping, but always came home with a small bag of something she could have bought anywhere. One of the male antique dealers was often seen in the company of young boys. And, oops, out spilled an unlawful number of bottles of prescription medicine when the magistrate’s wife dropped her purse at the grocery. Little pills in a rainbow of colors rolled under the refrigerated-meat section. Therefore, I was shocked, but not surprised, when I found myself running away from the adult underbelly of Jubilee.

There was a man. He had the face of a beekeeper’s apprentice and the body of a half-cured ham—fat and unsettled. Like a walrus, his body had no definition. The connection of one fleshy part to another was a mystery. His scowl and smile were one and the same. He scratched himself compulsively. Even if he’d broken both of his clammy, nail-bitten hands, it wouldn’t have prevented him from breathing on a girl’s neck or massaging her back with his bloated arm. He had the look of an old man about him even in his bloom. In a salute to their idea of his testicular fortitude, the boys called him Neddy Numb Nuts. Ned Barker enjoyed an unfettered access to girls, made possible by his position as overseer of several extracurricular activities for boys and girls from the ages of fourteen to eighteen, and his proclaimed importance in Jubilee’s pecking order gave him courage. He was a well-known, high-profile member of his church. The first time I was snared by Mr. Barker’s grope was in the nest he created for legitimate club meetings. I drove to the edge of Jubilee onto a country road and turned into a gravel driveway. There was the feeling of seclusion. I recognized three or four other cars and was glad not to be the first
to arrive. I was nervous because this was my first meeting and I didn’t know what to expect.

Mr. Barker had transformed his basement into a place we called the dragon’s den, in which he moved about with a reptilian thud. There were no windows, and his feeble attempts at mood lighting gave the furniture and carpet a sickly yellow glow. The only seating was an oversize sofa, and I thought it odd that there weren’t any chairs. Three or four boys and girls sat cross-legged on the floor, and a couple of girls were on the sofa where Mr. Barker sat, or rather where his body spread over the cushions, with a clipboard on his lap and a pen in hand. He patted the seat next to him. Unaware of his predilection for underage, sweet young things, I sat down. I sank into the worn cushion and found that any movement at all made me sink farther into the bowels of the sofa. It felt like being trapped. Each of us was there to receive feedback on our projects, which we were required to present to Mr. Barker. I don’t think any of us were particularly thrilled. There was no way around it, though, if you were a high-school-age kid who wanted to do something after school other than booze it up in a tobacco barn. Mr. Barker had a little niche going in the realm of extracurricular activities.

While all eyes were focused on Bobby and his presentation, I felt Mr. Barker’s heavy arm creep onto my shoulders as he placed half of it on the back of the sofa and half around me. It was awkward. I squirmed, hoping to signal to him that he’d made a mistake. Nothing. Then I felt one of his fingers on my neck. I jumped, but he pressed me back in the seat again with a firm hand. I was dumbfounded. And his soft, round shoulders were stronger than I’d thought. He’d done this before. I said nothing. I did nothing. I thought about how I could get out of the situation, but I felt I could do nothing until Bobby had finished. Would Bobby ever shut his trap?

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked as soon as he spoke his last word.

When I returned, my seat was still empty and I looked at the other two girls. One of them glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes and then looked straight ahead. I sat on the floor.

“Come on back up here and sit down,” Mr. Barker said to me.

“That’s all right. I’m fine.”

The next time we were supposed to meet I tried to make excuses but was assured that a project short of perfection was not acceptable. I arrived late, hoping that the special seat next to Mr. Barker had already been taken. Hallelujah! A girl sat next to him and I was surprised to see his hairy arm on her shoulders now. She had a blank look on her face, or maybe it was shock. Damn. This guy didn’t discriminate. He boldly chose girls from the right side of the tracks. I realized that he must have felt very sure of himself.

Later in the evening, after an assortment of soft drinks had been offered and the laughter of the boys rang in the air from a sophomoric joke, the room cleared and only two of us were left to perform. The boys, who were allowed to do their bit and leave, had no idea what they were missing. Mr. Barker asked the other girl to present her work. I sat on the far end of the sofa. The space that had previously been taken by others was now empty, and before I had a chance to move to the floor, he slid over next to me during the girl’s presentation. Within seconds his arm was around my shoulders and I felt his cold, wet finger sliding into my blouse, then right into my bra. I moved my body in some way that knocked his hand away from me. The movement drew him out of his trance. The girl’s voice droned on. I panted internally, desperate to find a way not to be left alone with him.

“Gosh,” I interrupted. “Would you look at the time? I have really got to head out of here.”

“But you haven’t done your work yet.” Did I detect a hint of temper?

“Sorry, I’ll go first next time.”

I don’t know how many girls found themselves within Mr. Barker’s web of fondling madness, and I don’t know why we didn’t report him. We didn’t even talk to each other about it. I was embarrassed by it and thought that this was somehow punishment for the other life I led in secret. I thought that his being after me was a reflection of whom I had become.

One night I found myself drunk in Mr. Barker’s hotel room. Unbelievably, he was allowed to take groups of kids on overnight trips. We were to have a “meeting” in his room after dinner. I walked in and found just one other girl there. She was a year younger than me and I didn’t know her well. He clumped over to the minibar and began pouring drinks. I waited for everyone else to show up, and by the time I’d downed my third bourbon and Coke, I finally realized that no one else was coming. I was nearly passed out on the bed and the other girl was in a similar state, just inches away from me. Mr. Barker climbed onto the bed and plowed between us. He had concocted a high-school-girl sandwich and was the big, fat filling. I heard a giggle erupt from her. Surely not? I thought. But, no, there it was again.

He said something about being able to watch TV better from the bed. I tried to sit up and focus on the television but became dizzy and fell back on the pillow to stop the room from spinning. I had enough sense to know that I couldn’t let myself pass out in that room, but before I could make an effort to get up, I felt his hand sliding down my pants and into my underwear. He was quick and practiced. His toxic hand made me feel sick. I was stunned by the difference between the touch for which the whole
body aches and yearns, and the unwanted, feral touch of a predator. I jumped up and staggered out.

In an effort to assuage my guilt for not being the other girl’s caretaker, the next morning I searched for her at breakfast. She sat alone, hunched over a plate of eggs, and crunched on a piece of toast as if it were her last. My head was splitting and my mouth was as dry as a dust storm, the very thought of food . . .

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Why?” She smiled brightly.

“No reason.”

I made plans. I would have to be smarter and more alert. There wasn’t any way to stay completely clear of him, but I vowed he’d never touch me again. Eventually, he landed on another girl like a beached whale. I guess he kept trying until he found a taker. I was eternally grateful that Sarah let him do whatever he wanted to her. She lived in the doctor-and-lawyer area of town, where we often saw his car parked in her driveway. My friends and I were puzzled that this academically brilliant, good-looking girl could allow Mr. Barker’s clammy hands near her. We drove by her house to see how late his car stayed in the driveway. Why did her parents allow him to visit her? Didn’t they think it was strange? How did he get away with it? He somehow managed to pull off normalcy with the adults of Jubilee. And still no one reported him.

In a summer ritual on Sunday nights when the sun finally set, a group of us packed into several cars and formed a train to the drive-in. We never watched the movie, but strolled from car to car getting sloshed on Purple Passion or Strawberry Hill. We walked by Mr. Barker’s car, and Sarah was hanging out the window three sheets to the wind. He tried to walk her around and sober her up, to no avail. It would be impossible to take her home bombed out of her mind. I felt a little sorry for her and
remembered a time when I was so drunk that someone stood me up at my door in one piece. My parents were out this night so I told Mr. Barker he could bring her to my house. But his idea of sobering her up was entirely different from mine. I was thinking coffee. Jemma and I watched with open mouths as Mr. Barker stripped the fifteen-year-old girl and carried her naked into the shower.

“Mr. Barker . . . Mr. Barker,” she giggled in a drunken stupor.

We left them to it.

“Damn, those rumors must be true,” I said to Jemma.

“Yeah, but I thought she was supposed to be smart. Why would she let him near her?”

“There are different kinds of smart.”

The same could have been said about me. I wasn’t always smart. I took too many chances and knew that something had to give. If Jo’s father hadn’t contemplated taking a job in Mississippi, then maybe things would have turned out differently. She felt sure they would move away and began prematurely to wrap up her life in Jubilee. She stopped seeing Dean at the same time that I stopped seeing Julian. The lack of any normalcy in our relationship had left Julian restless.

“I’m tired of all this sneaking around,” he told me. “Jubilee is too backward, it won’t ever accept mixed relationships.”

I could say nothing to that. He was right. We’d never go to the movies together. We’d never walk into a restaurant together, or go to the Beacon Dipper for ice cream, and he would never meet my parents. The fear of getting caught would always haunt us. It ended amicably and with great relief. I walked away feeling as if I’d just been saved from some terrible disaster that I couldn’t name, one that had hovered over me for a long time.

 CHAPTER 14 

I
avoided boys, young men, old men, any kind of men except dead ones, for a long time. I tried to focus on my schoolwork. I planned to embalm a cat for my science project.
This will be unique!
I thought. I could position it on a wooden platform and source a glass dome to cover it. What a visual display! I drove my science teacher and my father crazy until they agreed to a meeting.

I arranged for Mr. Whitlock to drop by the funeral home after school. The day the three of us met in my father’s office, I was so excited that I paced back and forth while the two men sat in leisurely calm.

“So, she wants to embalm a cat, does she?” my father said to Mr. Whitlock, as though I weren’t in the room.

“Looks that way.”

“Okay, well, first we have to find a cat,” my father said.

Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Yep, then she’ll have to kill it.” Mr. Whitlock sat comfortably with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed.

“Kill it?” I asked.

“Of course. You can’t embalm a cat unless it’s dead.” My father looked conspiratorially at Mr. Whitlock.