Garden of Angels (11 page)

Sixteen

January

Becky Sue pumped me for every detail about the wedding. I spilled my guts, even telling her about my ride on Jason’s motorcycle. I just left out the personal part: how off-balance I felt whenever I was near him. I saw no need to open
that
can of worms. Soon our discussion turned to the party at Patti’s. I personally didn’t think Jason would show up, so that took a lot of the anticipation away for me, but Becky was counting on Russell making an appearance, and I was hoping he would for her sake.

On the home front, Mama was feeling better, and on Monday, the day before the big party, Adel and Barry picked up Adel’s belongings. They stayed for supper before driving back to Atlanta and their new apartment. Barry was to be on duty during the holiday, but before they left, Mama reminded Adel to cook traditional Southern dishes for New Year’s Day—corn bread, greens, hog jowls and black-eyed peas peppered with hot sauce. Eating jowls and peas meant a year of good luck, which all of us needed in facing 1975.

On New Year’s Eve, Becky’s mother drove us to the party, but Becky asked her to let us off far enough from the cabin that no one would see us arriving by her mother-as-chauffeur service. We needn’t have worried. Cars were parked helterskelter on the dirt road leading to the cabin, and it was pitch dark.

“Are you sure Patti’s parents are going to be there?” Mrs. Johnson asked when we got out of the car.

“That’s what Patti said,” Becky Sue answered with a perfectly straight face.

Patti already had announced to her friends that her folks had other plans that night, but they’d threatened to “drop in” and “check on us,” which no one believed for a minute.

“I’ll be here to pick you up at twelve-thirty,” Becky’s mother said, craning her neck and checking out the line of cars. “You’re lucky your father’s allowing you to come at all. I expect you two to act like adults,” she was adding as Becky slammed the car door.

The closer we got to the cabin, the more cars and people we saw. “I think the whole school showed up,” Becky said. “I hope I can spot Russell in this crowd.”

Word of Patti’s party had spread far and wide, because I saw kids I didn’t recognize from schools besides ours. Couples were making out in cars, others were sitting on hoods and fenders of cars and one group even had a campfire going on the front lawn. It was still winter and cold that night to boot. But if I thought it was crowded outside the cabin, nothing prepared me for going inside. Becky and I faced wall-to-wall bodies, blaring rock music and gyrating dancers. Furniture had been shoved against the walls and area rugs rolled up. Cigarette smoke hung in the air like swamp fog.

Becky tried to say something to me, but I couldn’t hear her above the noise. I pointed to the front door and wiggled my way back outside, where I took in great gulps of fresh air. Already, I wasn’t having a good time. Coughing because of the smoke, Becky said, “There’s beer in the kitchen.”

“I hate beer,” I said, amazed that she could have learned that fact in the short time we’d been inside.

“Me too. Maybe there are colas. And rum.”

“I don’t like rum either.”

She knew this was true, because we’d raided her father’s liquor cabinet once when we were twelve and sampled every kind of alcohol he owned. With the first couple of sips, I’d felt mellow and giggly. Then I went loopy, and after that I got sick as a dog, and so did Becky. We told our parents it was the stomach flu, but I swore to the Lord then and there that if I lived, I would never drink alcohol again. Baptists had the right idea about steering clear of the “devil’s brew,” as Pastor Jim called it.

“Let me check around about Russell,” she said, and left me shivering on the porch. In fifteen minutes, she was back.

“Find him?” I asked, hugging my arms for warmth.

“He didn’t come.” She was scowling. “What do you want to do?” She sounded frustrated, as if I was responsible for spoiling her evening.

I was about to suggest calling her mother to come and take us back home where we could eat popcorn and watch TV when two people started yelling at each other on the front lawn. We turned and saw J.T. and Donna standing toe to toe.

“You’re cheating on me! Don’t deny it!” J.T. hollered.

“Leave me alone. You’re drunk as a skunk!” Donna fired back.

J.T. was weaving and bobbing and looked as threatening as a raging bull. “Not until you tell me who he is!”

Donna turned to walk away, and J.T. grabbed her arm. “Let go of me, J.T.”

“Not till you tell me who you’re sneaking around with behind my back. No one cheats on me!”

Donna struggled to free her arm. “You’re hurting me. Let go.”

He shoved her backward. “You’re a tramp.”

“And you’re a pig.”

“Not too much of a pig for you to take a Christmas gift from,” J.T. barked at her.

“That piece of cheesy crap? It turned my neck green.”

I stared openmouthed because anyone could see Donna was flirting with disaster. J.T.’s expression looked wild. “I could choke you!” He grabbed for her neck.

Two of his friends pulled him away, saying, “Settle down, J.T. She ain’t worth it.”

Donna didn’t seem to have the brains God gave a goat because she screeched, “You don’t own me, J. T. Rucker! I can do what I want. I can see who I want.”

J.T. fought his friends’ hold, but he was too drunk to break free. Three of Donna’s friends wisely took her arms and dragged her off.

“When I find the bastard, I’ll kill him!” J.T. all but screamed after her. “And you’ll be responsible. You hear me? His death will be your fault!”

He was shouting at empty air. Everybody outside the cabin stood motionless, watching the scene play out. With a growl, he shook off his friends and staggered toward the porch. “Let me go and get out of my way. I need a beer.”

As he lumbered toward the steps, I pulled Becky Sue to the edge of the porch and out of his path. My back brushed the railing and I held my breath. I surely didn’t want him seeing me, so certain was I that he’d have something hateful to say about Adel. I was lucky. He didn’t notice me and Becky Sue. Instead, he crashed through the front door, knocking people aside and shoving his way through the crowd. I said to Becky, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Good idea.”

We hightailed it down the steps and into the safety of the darkness.

“Wow. What do you suppose brought that on?” Becky asked.

“I wonder if it’s true,” I said. “I wonder if she’s cheating on him.”

“Who’d be so stupid? Besides, J.T. and Donna have broken up before. They’ll be back together in a week, wait and see.” Becky flapped her arms. “I’m freezing.”

“Me too, but I think we’d better stay out here.”

We eventually found an unoccupied car and climbed inside to stay out of the cold and wait for Becky’s mother to show up. Russell never did surface, so the party was a bust and, except for the fracas with Donna and J.T., out of Becky’s and my league. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if J.T.’s suspicions were founded in truth or in his drunken imagination. Not that it mattered. If Donna could make J.T. suffer, then more power to her.

In January, President Ford extended his earlier offer of clemency to Vietnam draft dodgers. This made plenty of people in our part of Georgia pretty darn mad. There was a time when I wouldn’t have noticed such things, but ever since Barry had become a part of our family, I kept myself up on world events. I read editorials in Conners’ weekly
Herald-News,
which didn’t usually print much more than ball scores and reports about town meetings and social affairs. However, they gave a nice big write-up to Adel’s wedding, which pleased Mama no end.

Still, I quickly learned that if I wanted real news, I had to go to the public library and read papers from other parts of the country—
The
New York Times,
the
Atlanta Journal,
the
Chicago
Tribune
and even
The Daily News
from Washington, D.C. I compared stories and opinions and there was no doubt about it—the South was a whole lot angrier about the clemency offer than other places.

Also in January, the province of Phuoc Long in South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam, which upset folks in our area even more because that meant that the Communists were encroaching farther south and that South Vietnam was losing the war. I think that to some in Conners, it was a little like Sherman invading Georgia in the Civil War. At least that’s what Papa said whenever he returned from the barbershop or the hardware store, where he’d discuss these things with other men from our town.

I spent hours going over Kyle’s scrapbook about his tour of duty. The photographs and his journal entries told stories that both touched my heart and horrified me.

January 21, 1968: Khe Sanh military base, after midnight,
NVA artillery scored a direct hit on our ammunition stores.
Explosions keep going off. It’s like the whole world is burning
down around us.

January–February 1968: We’re busiest after dark when the
NVA is most active. We need supplies, over 160 tons a day,
just to keep fighting.

February 11: Lost a C-130 Hercules Transport that was try
ing to land and bring us supplies. Entire crew dead.

February ’68: The enemy shells us every day. At night we
sleep in shifts. By day we dig trenches, fill sandbags and improve our bunkers. Trenches are knee-deep in mud. I’ve got
foot rot because my feet are always wet. Food scarce. Two C
rations per day. Rats everywhere. Frank shot one crawling on
his sleeping bag and blew off part of his own foot—a mistake,
but it got him out of here. Casualties daily. No mail, no nothing. Dear God, I’d give all my worldly goods for a hot shower
and a clean bed.

Choppers being sent in with supplies now. The supply choppers are preceded by Sky Hawk fighters and Huey gunships
and they’re in and out in five minutes. The sweet sounds of
those helicopters are the highlight of my day. I watch them
swirl down, throwing winds that make trees sway and break.
They take the wounded, leave supplies. The choppers rise up
like great dark angels, taking my dreams of escape from this
hellhole with them.

We got pinned down today near hill 861 in a firefight. Snipers
hid in trees and began to pick us off. Longest night of my life.
Teddy Bryant, next to me, took one in the chest. I talked to
him all night long to keep him awake, and when the choppers
came to rescue us I carried him on my back to the belly of the
transport. A useless waste of energy, according to the medic.
Teddy was already dead.

March ’68: Dysentery and sores are driving me insane. Three
more of my buddies are dead from enemy fire.

June ’68: After a 77-day siege and hundreds of marines KIA
(killed in action), the base at Khe Sanh was abandoned and
blown up today by our own troops because Washington’s decided it’s no longer militarily strategic to remain there. So
many died here, and now we’re told the place doesn’t matter
anymore.

I have survived when so many of my buddies have not. I don’t
know why. Maybe to tell people that I have seen Hell and felt
its fiery brimstone, and that it is a place where no one should
ever have to go.

I cried when I read Kyle’s journal. I saw the scenes he described, felt his anguish over losing his friends. I got mad at our President and Congress because they had allowed the fighting to go on for so long. With five months of school remaining, I kept tweaking and embellishing the chart with photos I cut from
Life
and
Look
and
Time
magazines. I knew the names of the military helicopters and fighter jets, the names of the battles, the locations of the crucial cities. Yes, I was becoming a real expert on the war in Vietnam.

Then, in the last week of January, two things happened that put everything else out of my mind. Adel called to say that Barry and she were moving to Germany, courtesy of the U.S. Army. And my mother returned to the hospital for more chemotherapy.

Seventeen

February

With Mama back in the hospital in Atlanta and Adel gone to Germany, I faced coming home to our empty house every day after school. I hated it. The house I’d grown up in seemed wintry and dark, a shell sucked clean of life. The gardens were barren, with leafless bushes and brown grass and birds not yet returning to build nests or sing their sweet songs. Papa didn’t come home until after six, sometimes later. “Tax season is on us,” he told me. “These next three months are the busiest of the year, so you’ll be on your own a lot, Darcy. Can you handle it?”

Naturally I said yes. I made a stab at cooking and discovered that cooking and timing delivery to the table were much harder than I’d imagined. However, Mama’s prayer circle from church still brought over casseroles, so Papa and I ate regularly. I did my homework. I watched some television. I went to bed. My life became colorless and drab.

On weekends, Papa and I went to visit Mama. She suffered terribly. She was worn down by chemo and ravaged by cancer; I could hardly bear to look at her. If I had thought her first chemo treatments were awful, these were downright horrific. Mama again lost her hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes. She said, “I look like a plucked chicken.” She had terrible sores inside her mouth, making it impossible for her to eat or drink. She was racked by nausea and lost so much weight that she became just skin and bones. Fear lived inside my heart like a worm in an apple. “She’s not getting better,” I told Papa after every visit.

“She will,” he said. “Like last time, she’ll get better and come home to us.”

I told Becky Sue, “The chemo is poisoning my mother.”

Becky Sue let me rant and rail and patted my shoulder and told me to pray harder. I hesitated to tell her that I’d given up on prayer because God wasn’t listening. If he had been, then my mama would have been getting well and would have come home and stayed home. I swore off Sunday school and sat in the far back pews with Papa during church services. I attended youth group, but only for Becky’s sake. I just couldn’t feel anything but resentment toward God.

It was Becky who signed us up at school for the Valentine dance’s decoration committee.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked as she dragged me to the gym for the first meeting.

“Because it’s the only dance of the year for the whole high school. Because dressy clothes are mandatory and therefore everybody looks their best. Because you need to think about something else for a change. Because it might actually be fun.” She ticked off the reasons on her fingers as she spoke.

“Oh, sure. Cutting out paper hearts and making red-and-white paper chains is so much fun.”

“Don’t be so crabby. I mean, what else have you got to do?”

She was right about that. It wasn’t as if my life was full. I’d given up on Jason—a secret crush that would never amount to anything. He usually acknowledged me when I saw him in the halls, but he’d stopped coming to teen group at church, and no amount of begging him to return, according to Carole, persuaded him to do so. I considered Becky’s suggestion.

“Oh, all right,” I said grudgingly. “I’ll be on the committee with you.”

Our gym teacher, Mrs. Poston, supervised the plans for the dance, making sure we had the proper supplies and a scheme for decorating. Of course, I had no plans to
attend
the dance, because except for Jason, there wasn’t a boy in our school I’d go with, even if someone asked me—which no one would—but Becky held out hope that Russell would ask her. Three days before the big dance in the gym, Russell surprised us both by doing so. I’d heard that his first choice, Susan Wilson, had turned him down, but I saw no reason to puncture Becky Sue’s balloon with that kind of news.

“You have to come,” she told me the day we were hanging decorations around the gym. The dance was to start at seven and we only had a few hours to get the work done, so the committee had excused absences for that Friday afternoon.

“I don’t want to come,” I told Becky. “Why should I?”

“To support me.”

“You’ve got Russell to support you.”

“But he’s a guy and you’re my best friend. Who’ll go to the bathroom with me?”

I rolled my eyes. “I imagine you can pee by yourself.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. I
need
you there. What if Russell and I don’t hit it off?”

“You’ve been talking about Russell Danby all year. And now, at the eleventh hour, you’re afraid you might not get along with him?” I wanted to take my best friend by the shoulders and shake her. “I don’t want to go!” I exclaimed. “I’ll stand out like a sore thumb.”

“Lots of others will be coming stag,” Becky insisted. “You won’t be alone.” She leaned closer to me. “I’ve heard that Donna won’t be going with J.T. Don’t you want to see who she comes with?”

“They haven’t made up yet?”

“Not even speaking,” Becky said smugly.

I admitted that I was curious, but other things had occupied my mind in the past month. I told Becky Sue, “No way am I coming to the dance.”

But in the end, she won out.

When I arrived home from school on Friday and read a note from Papa saying that he’d be working late, and when I saw the long, lonely Friday night stretching out in front of me like an eternity, I knew I couldn’t stay there by myself. I hurried upstairs and called Mrs. Poston and told her that I’d be glad to man the punch bowl and take care of the table throughout the evening. She volunteered to pick me up early, for which I was grateful, because that meant I could arrive early with her and wouldn’t have to walk into the gym for all the world to see that I was utterly and totally alone.

I pulled my bridesmaid dress from the closet and made a stab at dabbing on makeup leftovers from Adel, but could only brush my hair and let it hang to my shoulders in its usual style. “Who cares?” I told my reflection in the mirror. No one would be looking at me.

The gym filled quickly with couples, and with the lights dimmed and a disco ball scattering sparkles every which way and the walls decorated with giant hearts, cupids and paper doilies, the place looked pretty good. Terri Hanson’s older brother set up a DJ corner and played stacks of records, one right after the other. I took my place behind the punch table and poured red punch into plastic cups for all who asked. And I saw that Becky Sue had been correct when she’d predicted that many kids would come stag. A whole line of chairs along the west wall was filled with girls and guys all dressed in their party best and trying hard to look bored and uninterested in each other.

“You’re here!” Becky squealed the minute she saw me. She was dressed in a long pink dress with pretty, puffy long sleeves and ribbons. She wore a wrist corsage.

“I couldn’t let my best friend pee alone,” I said, handing her a cup of punch. “Of course, your kidneys will have to coordinate with my breaks.”

She leaned closer. “Russell is wonderful. His eyes lit up like Christmas tree bulbs when I came down the stairs.”

I was happy for Becky, but envious too. It might be nice to have some boy make a fuss over me. “Go dance,” I told her. “And don’t get lipstick on his collar.”

She walked off in a flounce of taffeta, and Russell met her on the dance floor. I watched them snuggle amid all the other couples. I poured another cup of punch and looked up to see J.T. holding out his hand. “If I’d known you were going to be here unattached, I’d have dumped my plans, fallen at your feet and begged you to be my date,” he taunted.

I scanned the room as if searching for someone. “So who did you pay to come with you?”

He sneered at me. “I’m with JoAnn Moser. And she volunteered.”

“What—no Donna?” I was pushing my luck but didn’t much care because he had made me mad with his teasing.

His expression grew stony and I knew my barb had hit home. “She’s dog food. Who needs her?”

“Jason,” I whispered, shocked. For there he was, just walking in the door, holding Donna’s hand.

J.T. turned, and although I couldn’t see his face, I did see his back straighten and his big, beefy hand clench into a fist.

Jason was dressed in jeans, but also a sport coat and white shirt. Donna wore soft yellow and her smile looked radiant. Suddenly, all became clear to me. It was Jason whom Donna had been seeing secretly. It was Jason who had broken J.T.’s hold on his longtime girlfriend. And by coming to the dance together, they were flaunting it to every teen in Conners. J.T., the mighty football god, had been snaked by an outsider, a nobody, a motorcycle-riding hood and a Yankee. I would have laughed out loud if my own heart hadn’t been broken.

Principal Hagan and the coach materialized as if from thin air. Their presence meant there would be no problems at the dance. I picked up the cup of punch J.T. had set on the table. “Don’t you want your punch, J.T.?” I asked sweetly. “Have you lost your taste for it?”

He shot me a withering look. “Stuff it, Quinlin.” He lumbered off, found JoAnn and half dragged her to the door. Everyone heard them arguing about leaving so early, but in the end J.T. got his way. As he usually did.

Once they were gone, the floor filled up again with couples, and music filled the gym. I hardly heard anything. My hands were shaking so badly that I spilled punch on the table and had to find paper towels to sop up the mess. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to leave. I started making up a story in my head for Mrs. Poston to excuse myself when Becky Sue came up and said, “Time for a break.”

I left my duties without a backward glance and followed her into the girls’ room, crammed with chattering females crowded around the mirror. “What’s up?” Becky asked once we’d carved out a space for ourselves. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

“J.T. was hateful to me,” I said. The half-truth was my protective shield.

“Well, he certainly got slapped down tonight,” Becky said with a note of satisfaction. “Donna really embarrassed him. I didn’t think the old girl had it in her, but I’m glad she did.”

A senior and one of Donna’s girlfriends, overhearing our conversation, said, “Donna’s been sneaking around with Jason since Christmas. At first she was just using him to get back at J.T., ’cause he’s so mean to her. But the little mouse got caught in her own snare. Now she’s crazy about Jason.”

I could have lived forever without hearing that, but I carefully hid my feelings behind a mask of indifference. Becky Sue hung on her every word. “J.T. won’t like being crossed,” she said. “Did Donna think about the consequences?”

The girl shrugged. “Jason knows he’s playing with fire, but he doesn’t seem to care. It’s sort of romantic if you think about it, having two guys squabbling over you.”

I didn’t want to think about it.

Once we were back in the gym, Becky again asked me, “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not acting like yourself.”

“I told you I didn’t want to come to this dance,” I said. “I should have stayed home.”

Becky Sue gave me a hug. “Tomorrow night we’ll have a sleepover.”

“I’m going with Papa to visit Mama.”

“Soon as you get home, you come over.”

“What if Russell wants you to go out with him?”

“Why, he can just wait. Goodness, I’ve waited long enough for him.”

Knowing she was trying to cheer me up, I forced a smile. By then many of the couples were leaving and the dance was winding down. I was almost back to my post behind the punch table when Jason stepped in front of me. “Can we dance?” he asked.

“Where’s your date? Chasing after J.T.?” I felt mean-spirited and humiliated too because he’d trampled on my tender feelings for him.

“Donna’s sitting this one out.”

I glanced around and saw her perched on a stag-line chair. She was giving both of us dagger looks.

“What is she? A trained puppy? Waiting for you to snap your fingers?”

“Ouch,” he said mildly. “Why so hostile?”

“I’m busy,” I said, stepping around him.

“But I want to dance with you.” He stepped into my path.

“Well, did it occur to you that I might not want to dance with you?” My heart was hammering like a drum.

He looked down at me, grinned and took me in his arms. “It never crossed my mind.”

And at that moment, the DJ put on “I Honestly Love You.” My breath caught. I looked into Jason’s face and saw only softness. “Dance with me,” he whispered.

If I had been butter, I would have melted.

His embrace tightened, and with my body fitted to his, we moved as one to the music. I felt the heat of his skin on mine, the warmth of his breath on my cheek. His lips pressed against my hair. The words of the song wrapped around me like fine ribbons, binding me to Jason. He didn’t know— could never know—how much I wanted to be near him this way.
“I love you; I honestly love
you. . . .”
The voice on the record and the one in my head flowed into one pure stream. I struggled not to cry.
It’s a song, just a song,
I told myself. It meant nothing and this dance meant nothing.

When the music ended, Jason slowly untangled from our embrace. He stared down at me, his green eyes serious, his delicious mouth inches from mine. “You are beautiful, Darcy Quinlin.”