A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (22 page)

My father was nodding slowly. “Can’t drink and drive,” he said.

“Neva.”

“Well, if your mother won’t let you have hers, you can take mine out once. Channe’s got to be home by twelve.”

“That’s real nice of you, Mr. Willis. Real nice. Don’t worry, I swea I’ll drive careful and get her home by twelve.”

Keith borrowed his older brother’s girlfriend’s ID and took me to Tides, a bar out in the middle of the woods. Three of the boys I’d had sex with were there playing pool. They said hello to Keith with straight faces and then actually said hello to me as though I were just another one of the local girls. I drank White Russians, a dozen of them, which were bought for me by the three boys and by Keith. I bought several rounds for them as well, with the twenty dollars my father had given me. I threw up out the window of Keith’s mother’s car. He was driving like Mario Andretti to get me home by twelve. We walked into the kitchen at 12:05. Keith was sweating. My father was sitting in front of the TV looking at his watch.

“Sorry, Mr. Willis. She kinda had too many drinks and got a little sick.”

“Well, you shouldn’t keep
buying
them for her,” my father said, his thin mouth contorting into something between a snarl and a smile.

“I didn’t. Some otha guys were. I tried to tell her to cool it but she wouldn’t listen. She’s stubborn.”

“Next time, Channe, don’t drink so much or I’m grounding your ass,” my father said.

Keith and I made love in the back of his mother’s station wagon on our second date. It was uncomfortable and cold even though Keith had brought blankets and had the heat up as high as it would go.

“I wish we didn’t have to do this like this, Channe,” he said against my neck.

“I know,” I said.

“What kind of weird name is that, Channe? I can’t get used to it. I mean, why can’t you have a name like Betty?”

“It’s Charlotte-Anne. My father’s sister’s name. She died before I was born.”

“You rich people always have weird names.”

He came in and said good night to my father, who gazed at us with a silly grin and then shook his head.

“Well, good night,” Keith said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Where’d you go?” my father asked after Keith had left.

“Nowhere, just driving around.”

“Sounds like fun,” my father said.

I went to bed thinking I would never talk to Keith again. The phone rang at nine o’clock the next morning, which was a Sunday. It was Keith calling to ask if I wanted to go iceskating on the town pond.

Later, Keith’s mother dropped us off at my house and Keith stayed for dinner. After dinner we all watched a movie on TV and then Billy went off to bed, grumbling “good night” without looking at anyone.

After the news, Keith got up to go. “How’re you getting home?” my father asked.

“Hitching,” Keith said.

“It’s so cold out,” my father said. “Are you guys sleeping together yet?” he asked, as though it were just a continuation of the last sentence.

“Well—” Keith started, and I said, “Yes, Daddy.”

“I don’t want you kids doing it in cars. Especially not my car.”

Keith laughed softly.

“I’d rather know where you are. I’d rather have you sleeping together under my own roof. So, I’ll tell you what. Call your mother and tell her you’re sleeping over and you can take the bus to school with Channe and Billy in the morning.”

“Bill,” my mother said as Keith went to the kitchen to call his mother, “isn’t it a little soon? I mean, for God’s sake—”

“I don’t give a shit,” he said simply. “They’re going to do it anyway, let them do it right.”

It was only another week before Keith moved in permanently. One more mouth to feed meant nothing to my father, whereas having one less to feed meant a great deal to Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Carter’s kind, hard-set, patient expression did not waver when Keith and I would stop by after school to say hello. She did not complain or ask her son any questions.

In return for room and board, Keith began to do odd jobs for my father around the house. He knew how to fix things. He knew about plumbing and electricity and was a good painter. During Christmas vacation it also became Keith’s responsibility to pick Billy up at the high school after his tutoring session in English.

One day Keith and I found Billy sitting alone on the front steps of the school with a swollen, bloody lip. He was pale and his eyes sagged ashamedly. He seemed to have been crying. He walked toward the car without looking at us.

“What happened to you, Billy?” Keith said. Billy got in the back of the Volkswagen without saying a word.

“Steve Bates pulled my jacket over my head and punched me in the mouth. I had my back to him, I was looking inside my locker. I would’ve fought back but I was worried about my teeth.” He started to cry after that. “My teeth, you know. Dad always says protect your teeth.”

I felt a rage so fierce and helpless I could not even think of a thing to say. I did not know Bates or why he would have picked on my brother but I wanted to kill him.

“Fuckin’ Master Bates. What a scumbag,” Keith said. “I bet he wasn’t alone either. That kid’s the biggest chicken shit in the world. Wants to be six-five and is only five-eight. Hates the world for it. I’m going to kill him.”

“No, don’t,” Billy said. “He’ll just come after me again. Forget it.”

“That dipshit’ll be pumping gas for the rest of his life, never’ll get out of this town. And you’ll be a congressman or a lawyer or something and he’ll be filling your car, sayin, ‘Anything else,
sir?’
That’s why he hates you, even if he doesn’t know it. His father’s an asshole drunk like my father and you guys have the best father in the world.”

“Please don’t tell Daddy,” Billy said. “He’ll get upset. Tell him I fell down.”

After the Christmas snowfall, the temperature dropped and the roads iced over completely. My father did not want us to go out on New Year’s Eve. “Too many drunks,” he said. “And the roads are frozen solid. It doesn’t matter how carefully you drive if some jackass comes speeding down the road at you in the wrong lane.”

“Oh please, Daddy. There’s this huge party down at Tides. Keith won’t drink, I swear. I’ll call you from the bar when we get there.” At that moment, to go to Tides for the party seemed the most important thing in my life. To finally fit in, to be Keith’s girlfriend in front of everybody. To get to talk to the girls who had ignored me; it was a night when everyone would be out and everyone would be happy.

“God do I hate to be a party poop,” he said. “Let me think about it.” Billy did not want to go out with Keith and me and my father did not want him to be home by himself, with his parents, on New Year’s Eve. Billy said he’d rather be alone anyway.

At dinner, my father asked Keith, “You know what to do if you lose control on ice?”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “You have to turn into the spin. Like, if the back end is swerving to the left, you turn the wheel to the left.”

“That’s right.”

My mother’s face looked drawn and there was a strange anger in her eyes. Her own father had died of a heart attack on New Year’s Eve when she was sixteen, while she’d been at a dance.

“I hate New Year’s Eve,” she said in a subdued voice. “And I really think you should stay home with your father tonight.”

“But it’s such a special night!” I said.

“All right,” my father said. “You can take the car. But I want you kids home by one-thirty.”

“Daddy!”

“All right, two, then. Call me when you get to Tides.”

Keith’s face went red with pride.

“You bet,” Keith said.

Keith put on a shirt and tie and jacket. I wore one of my mother’s silk shirts and a long woolen skirt and high-heeled boots. I went up to my parents’ room to show my mother how I looked. I was all smiles and my heart was beating fast.

My mother was sitting alone, leaning on her knees, at the edge of the bed. A drink was dangling from her hand. She seemed to be listening to the wind, which seeped through the cracks in the windows, making a sound like twenty harmonicas all playing a different tune. We could hear the television droning on in the kitchen below us.

“This could be his last one, you know,” my mother said. It was the first time she had said anything ominous about my father’s condition.

“How can you say that?” I said angrily.

“You’re so selfish you can’t see anything but yourself. It doesn’t matter if you stay home or not,” she said, pushing it all away from herself with a tired hand. “Go go go. Go have a good time.”