Dark River Road (17 page)

He didn’t go to the
Valentine’s dance. He left work late and Doc dropped him off at the end of Liberty Road well after dark. The dance would have started by now, and Cinda would be looking for him. He should have told her he wasn’t coming. He’d started to stop her at school and tell her, or write her a note, or call her, but he just didn’t. He didn’t know why. Maybe because he knew she’d ask questions and he didn’t have any answers. None that he could tell her, anyway.

Mama met him at the door, and he could tell by looking at her face that something was up. His first thought was Rainey had done something bad, but then Mama smiled at him and he knew it couldn’t be too terrible.

“Good news, Chantry.”

He looked at her warily. “Good news for who?”

“All of us.” Mama took a deep breath, and then said, “Doctors down in Jackson say they will fix the hole in Mikey’s heart if we take him down there to University Hospital.”

“What about the money?”

“They have a fund that will pay most of it. Like St. Jude’s up in Memphis. I just had to get the doctors here to put him on the list.” She put her hands up to her face, fingers pressing against her mouth and her eyes glistening with what looked like tears but could be just happiness. “There is just the paperwork to complete, and then they will set a date. Mr. Quinton said I should be at his office tomorrow afternoon to finalize everything.”

“What’s he got to do with it? He’s not a doctor.”

“No, but since he subsidizes our hospital and is on the board, his signature is required on some of the papers. Nothing for you to worry about. Oh, this is so wonderful. I just cannot believe this will soon be over and Mikey will be well. Doctors do amazing things these days, and while there’s always a little danger anytime a person goes under anesthesia, the doctors say Mikey is amazingly strong for all he has been through. Chantry—he is going to be
well
.”

He wanted to believe it, too. Mama looked so happy, and if Mikey got well, then maybe it would all be okay. When Mama gave him a big hug he hugged her back so tight it lifted her off the kitchen floor and she laughed, looking beautiful and happy.

They celebrated with Coke floats. Mikey sat at the kitchen table swinging his legs so hard his braces beat against the chair rungs with a loud clack and Mama didn’t even say anything. It hadn’t started out being a good night, but Chantry guessed it’d turned out pretty good after all.

After Mikey went to bed, he went outside on the front porch to stand in the cold air by himself for a while. Mama was humming a light tune and Rainey was down at the Tap Room, and he didn’t feel like watching any television or sitting inside. He leaned against the porch post and stared at the dark, empty field across the road. It’d been freshly tilled and he could smell the raw dirt that lay in long furrows. Light gleamed across the way in Dempsey’s house, and he wondered if Tansy was at the Valentine’s dance with Leon Smith.

Things had definitely changed with her. She wasn’t mean or anything, but never had time for him anymore. He didn’t have to be hit with a brick to figure it out. She’d moved on. She had her own thing going on and there wasn’t time or room for him in her life now. He didn’t blame her, but he did miss her. A lot. They’d been friends ever since he could remember.

He wished he could tell her about Cinda. It was hard not having anyone to tell him he was being a dumbass like Tansy always did. She’d know if he was screwing up. Maybe it was stupid to just not see Cinda anymore. Not without telling her why, anyway.

Lights swung onto the gravel road from the blacktop. Traffic didn’t come down Liberty Road unless they were coming to his house or Dempsey’s house since the Albertsons had moved a long time ago. They’d gone off and left their house sitting empty. He watched, and an older model Ford sped down the road like the driver intended to hit the dead end at full speed. Then it braked to a sudden halt, gravel shooting out like bullets. A car door opened, light flashed on in the interior to silhouette the occupants, then the door slammed shut. He heard Tansy shout something just before the car spun around and took off again, roaring back up the road to screech onto the asphalt and take off into the night.

Maybe things weren’t going so good for Tansy in the boyfriend department, either. As he watched, she just stood at the edge of her yard, staring down the road like she was waiting on the car to come back. It didn’t. She stood there a long time, with the light from the house behind her.

After a few more minutes, he pushed away from the porch post and walked down the road toward her. He half-expected her to turn around and go inside when she saw him, but she didn’t. She stood there with her hands jammed into her coat pockets and looked at him.

“Hey Tansy.”

“Hey Chantry.”

“You okay?”

“No. But what else is new.”

“Yeah. I know. Guess that was Leon?”

She didn’t answer, just gave him a look that told him to butt out, and he shrugged. “Look, I know we haven’t talked in a while. It’s my fault. I
 . . .
I’m sorry.”

After a moment she said, “It’s not your fault, Chantry. It’s just
 . . .
I’ve been kinda busy and stuff and just hangin’, ya know?”

“Sure.” It felt really awkward with her. And kinda sad. She rocked back and forth on her heels a little bit.

“So,” she said suddenly, “you’re not at the dance. I thought you’d be with Cinda.”

There was an edge to her tone that told him to be careful. He hesitated then said bluntly, “I guess I won’t be seeing her anymore.”

Tansy eyed him, light slanting across her face so subtly she looked mysterious and exotic. “She broke up with you? She must be crazy.”

That made him feel a little better. He shook his head. “No, her mother broke up with me.”

Tansy stared for a second, then burst into laughter. “Jesus, Chantry, you gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope.” Somehow it didn’t seem so bad when he was telling it to Tansy, and by the time he told her everything Mrs. Sheridan had said, they were both laughing. They’d walked a ways down the road while talking, and went to sit on the sagging porch steps of the empty house. It sat back from the street in a little patch of high brush, and looked out over the blacktop road several yards away. It was off by itself, and with the bushes left uncut, felt private.

“I can’t believe she said all that to you,” Tansy said when they stopped laughing. “Like she thinks she’s so much better. I hate it when people do that. It’s not right.”

They sat quietly for a moment, just like they used to do, knowing what each other was thinking without having to say it. It felt really good to be with her again. She leaned back.

“So, are you gonna say something to Cinda? Or just gonna let her mama do all the talking?”

“No, I guess I’ll say something. I just didn’t want to say the wrong thing, you know? I’m not real good at saying stuff.”

“I think you are.” Tansy nudged him with her elbow and he looked at her, barely able to see her in the dim light. “You can always say the right thing when you mean it.”

“Maybe.”

“If you still want to be with Cinda, then tell her that.”

Chantry reached out to strip a leaf from one of the evergreen bushes. “I don’t know. What if her mama’s right and it just causes trouble? Even if she doesn’t blame me at first, she will later.”

“Know what your problem is? You think too much, Chantry. You should just let yourself feel things sometimes.”

“I feel things.”

“Not so’s anyone else can tell.”

He didn’t have an argument for that. It was true.

“Guess you figure it’s too risky to let people know how you really feel, huh, Chantry. And I guess you’d be right if you do. Sometimes I feel the same way. But when it gets all tight inside me so that I can hardly breathe, so that all the feelings just start rolling around so fast that it hurts, I have to let ’em out.”

“How do you do that?” he asked after a moment.

“Me, I put what I feel in music. Songs. It doesn’t matter if I wrote them or someone else did, if the feeling’s the same.”

“I don’t listen much to music. I got a boom box for Christmas, but the only time I have to listen to it is at night, and then it wakes up Mikey.”

“Don’t you ever hear music in your head?”

“Looney tunes, maybe.” He smiled when she shoved him with her shoulder.

“You got no soul, Chantry Callahan. We got to get you some soul.”

“Right. Guess we’ll find that at Kmart. In the shoe department.”

“Oh, that was bad. Really bad. You’re still an asshole, you know that?”

“Yeah.”

Tansy gave him another shove. He shoved her back, and they started wrestling just like they had since they were little kids. He let her get the better of him for a few minutes, then he pinned her down easily, grinning when she finally said she gave up. He shook his head.

“Uh huh. I don’t trust you. If I let you up, do you quit?”

“Sure.”

Right
. He held her a moment longer, and the instant he released her he jumped up from the porch and cleared the steps in a single leap. She was right on his heels, as he’d known she’d be. Tansy had never been able to beat him in a race, but he kept his pace slow enough to let her think she might win, reaching the end of the gravel road and turning around to laugh at her.

“If you didn’t have those high shoes on, you might be faster than a turtle.”

She was breathing pretty hard. It made her chest rise and fall, and it looked like her boobs might just pop right out of the tight sweater she wore. He wished he hadn’t noticed that. A light on a high pole across the railroad tracks shed just enough of a fuzzy glow that he could see it reflected in her eyes. And on her bare skin above the vee of the sweater. Her short skirt stopped halfway between her knees and hips. Long legs seemed to go on forever.

“If I take my shoes off, you’ll be in trouble,” she said.

He might be in trouble anyway. He took a deep breath.

“Mikey’s gonna get his operation,” he said, and Tansy’s eyes got really wide.

“No. Really? This is good, right?”

“Mama thinks so.”

“And you don’t?”

“No, I think it’s good. I guess I just
 . . .
worry.”

“Doctors do miracles all the time, I hear. Mikey’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. I know. I guess.”

Tansy came really close. She reached up to put her hands on each side of his face, fingers long and cool against his skin. Lifting to her toes, she whispered, “I promise, Chantry. He’ll be okay.”

He put his hands under her elbows to hold her, wanting the contact, the closeness, the feeling that he wasn’t alone after all. She put her head against his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world, and it was. His arms went around her to hold her tightly. They stood like that for a little while, under the cold stars, just holding on to each other. He didn’t want it to end.

It was the motor that finally broke them apart, not the headlights that somehow he hadn’t noticed. He realized a car was coming down the blacktop about the same time as Tansy. The lights were so bright he put a hand up to shield his eyes and stepped to the side of the road, pulling her along with him.

It came to a screeching halt, gravel spitting out from the wheels when it slid to the edge of the blacktop. Dust hung in the beams of light, but he could see the gleaming chrome and bright red paint of Chris Quinton’s truck.

Two doors swung open. He’d expected to see Chris and his usual friends, but it was just Chris and Cinda. She flew from the passenger side, eyes glittering up at him.