How the Hula Girl Sings (7 page)

I was like some kind of teenage boy all over again. I rubbed the sweat from the palms of my hands onto my black work pants. I tried to hold in all my breath and hope and panic all at once, looking up into that shining white light, praying to see poor Charlene’s golden face and some of the sweetest, most unconsenting brown eyes I’d ever seen. I climbed the thick, rubbery willow tree, digging my hands along its thin limbs, climbing up its tallest green branch. Then I shimmied out to the glowing bedroom window, nearly entirely out of breath. I knocked against the shiny pane just once, right before I got afraid that this wasn’t Charlene’s house or bedroom window at all. I could almost see some greasy-faced machinist waking up and returning my knock with the business end of a loaded shotgun. I shook my head and began to crawl back down the tree. Just then the window shade parted a little, and the darkest, most pleasant brown eyes appeared, squinting right into mine. It was Charlene. No other lady I had ever met seemed so beautiful and detached. No other woman seemed so lovely and mean all at the same time.

“Get down out of my father’s tree.” She frowned. Her hair glistened light brown from the light cast over her bare white shoulder. She had on a thin white slip that barely covered her most soft, most sighing parts.

“This isn’t your father’s tree. It’s its own tree. I’m just borrowing it for a while tonight.”

“That’s the silliest thing I ever heard. What are doing staring in my window at this time of night?”

“Hoping I could talk to you, I guess.”

She shook her head, giving a little frown. “Listen, are you gonna get down? I have to go to sleep. I have to work in the morning.”

“Where is it you work?” I asked.

“If I tell you, will you leave?”

“I guess. If that’s what you’d like.”

“I’d like to go to sleep.”

“Well, I’d like you to kiss me.”

“There’s not much of a chance of that.” Her eyes seemed so brown and deep all of a sudden. “If I tell you where I work, will you just leave me alone?”

“OK, sweet pea.”

Charlene furrowed her thin black eyebrows right at me.

“I work at the Starlite Diner. Down the street.”

I smiled, feeling my teeth fill up my face.

“That’s only two blocks away from where I work.”

“Where’s that?” she asked.

“The Gas-N-Go.”

“I should have known.”

“Oh, don’t be like that.” I smiled. “I happen to know you’re a little sweet on me.”

“Not in the least. Besides, I could never bear to associate with such trash.” She smiled a little, leaning over the window pane. I could feel the heat from her white skin moving over my face. “Now, will you kindly remove yourself from my father’s tree?”

“For a kiss?”

“No.”

I shrugged my shoulders a little.

“I guess I’m just gonna have to start singing then.”

Charlene shook her head. “My father might still be awake. He already hates you for driving my older sister mad.”

“Mad?” I mumbled.

“Lovesick.” She sighed, fluttering her thick black eyelashes. “He had to buy her a brand-new pony when you stopped coming by. Then the pony got sick and died and my father found Ullele sleeping out beside it in the barn, broken up and crying your name. Then she was never the same since.”

My face felt cold. I shook my head. “That was ten years ago.”

“So? He still had to buy her that pony and we all had to listen to her crying all the time. It was a horrible thing you did to her. Making her sad like that. I would push you right out of that tree if I had the nerve.”

“You’re just afraid to kiss me.”

“Is that so?” she asked.

“Afraid I might drive you mad.”

“Not in the least.” Charlene sighed, tossing her curly brown hair over her shoulder.

“Then why don’t you give me one just to find out?”

“Nice try.”

“So are you gonna let me take you out one night or not?” I asked.

“The night hell freezes over.”

“Could take a long time.” I frowned. “Be an awful shame not to go out just once to see if your sister was right.”

“Did you know I talked to her today?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“I told her you were back in town. She didn’t say a thing about it. She’s up in the asylum in Lademe now. Doesn’t make sense of too many things.”

“Lademe?” I mumbled. There was an asylum up in Lademe where they sent you after you completely went out of your mind. I had known a convict at Pontiac that had spent some time there. He said they wouldn’t let him sleep. There was always someone shouting or crying or screaming like mad.

“Yes. It happened about a year ago. She had moved in with this man from Colterville who used to tie her up and lock her in the closet when he would go on off to work. She tried to get away but he kept sweet-talking her on back, and it all finally ended when she tied him to the bed while he was asleep and turned on the gas and left him there to be poisoned all alone in the middle of the night. But he woke up and started screaming for help and the police arrived and there was a little hearing and then they decided poor Ullele needed to take a quiet little trip.”

My face felt like it was bright red. I had no idea what to say. I felt like it was all somehow my fault.

“That’s awful,” I said quietly.

“It is. She’s been up there eight months now. Doesn’t seem to be doing her much good.”

“Why’d you tell me this?” I asked, not looking at her sweet round face.

“Thought you might wanna know. She was your girlfriend for a while, right? She lost her virginity to you and all.” She frowned, running her finger right past my hands along the thick brown branch.

“Is that what she told you?”

“Yes, she sure did. She had said you two were planning on getting married and all.”

“Christ!” I shouted. “That’s the worst lie I ever heard. Your sister lost her virginity a long time before me somewhere in someone else’s backseat.”

“Is that so? So I guess my sister is a liar, huh?” Her eyes flashed up, right into mine, full of anger and fire. I felt my chest and stomach tighten hard. I wanted to reach through the window and kiss her right there.

“So I’m supposed to believe you over my own sister? I think I should push you right off that branch for being so smug, don’t you?” Right there she could have asked any question and I would have said, “Yes.” She kind of flipped some of her curly brown hair over her shoulder and held her mouth closed.

“Are you gonna give me a kiss or not?” I asked.

“Not in a million years.”

“Fine.” I gave right in. I shook my head and began to climb down the tree.

“Where are you going?” she asked. The strap of her slip alighted from her shoulder down across the top of her arm. I could almost see the roundness of her smooth white breast.

“I’m going home.”

“Home? I didn’t think you’d just leave like that.”

“I’m sick of being called a hood. Good night.”

“Well, fine. Fine.”

“Fine,” I repeated, leaping off a lower branch down into the soft green grass.

“Fine!” Charlene shouted, slamming her window closed. That cool lush electrical light flickered off and left me standing alone in the dark by myself.

“FINE!!!” I shouted as loud as I could, then hopped over her parents’ lousy picket fence. “Always thought you were kind of a scrawny girl anyway! You old maid!”

I walked down the dark desolate street, still mumbling things to myself. Two cold headlight beams stopped right upon my face. A big red pickup truck pulled to a halt beside me. I could hear a gravelly voice over the rumble of the engine as it idled in park.

“You Luce Lemay, right?”

I nodded once, squinting hard to see who was behind the wheel. It was a dark face. I felt my innards turn cold. I felt like I was about to be shot down. The red door swung open. I saw someone’s white fist a few seconds before I felt the blow across my teeth.

“Stay the hell away from my girl!” he shouted. My head snapped back as the bastard swung again, cracking me hard in the jaw.
Snap!
I felt one of my back teeth roll up against my tongue like a tiny stone, dangling by a thin red string.

“Girl?” I mumbled, spitting out blood. “I don’t know no one’s girl.”

He cracked me in the mouth again. This time the loose tooth shot right out and did a little dance in blood as it hit the paved ground. I looked up at his face. It was big and white and square-shaped. There was a huge white scar just above his lip that still had a few stitches of thread left in the skin. His hair was reddish-brown and kind of black along the crown where it rose in twelve hundred greasy cowlicks.

“My name’s Earl Peet. Charlene’s my fiancée, you understand? A no-good like you crawling all over her makes me sick. Stay the hell away from her, you understand?”

Somehow this big juggernaut had his thick hands wrapped around my throat. Somehow I couldn’t throw a punch to save my life. It had been that girl. She had made me soft in the head. Earl Peet punched me square in my left eye and shook me again.

“Stay away from Charlene, you understand?!!”

“But she didn’t mention anything about being engaged.”

“Well, that girl doesn’t know what she wants right now. I don’t need you fouling things up between us.”

He squeezed my neck with his fat thick fingers, nearly making me choke. “Just stay the hell away.” He pushed me into an old brown sticker bush and I landed on my head in the dirt. I could hear him step back into his truck, shift the engine into first, and pull away before the ringing arrived somewhere in my ears.

I fell into my bed that night still dreaming of her face, hoping she’d somehow be standing over me when I could open my left eye right.

No lonely old swollen eye or broken tooth could persuade a cruel mistress like Fate. I made no mistake with Earl’s unkind threats. But I ran into Charlene again just by chance. Just by luck Junior and I happened to stop by the Starlite Diner the next night after work.

“Do you know there’s something mysterious in that little shake of yours? Put a spell on a lonely man.” This square-faced trucker sweet-talked Charlene from his booth, scratching his red beard as it ran wild across his wide face.

“Rivals the mysterious bits of food left in your beard, I dare say.” Charlene smiled. This girl’s face was round and soft and mean whenever she spoke. Her hair was so curly and brown and shined and moved. Her hair smelled like a peach, like summer, like tender fruit. Charlene was tall and thin and wore this cute frilly blue-and-white-and-pink waitress uniform that showed off her great legs. Being honest here, when Junior and I walked through the silver doors, I couldn’t take my unloyal eyes off her. The way she moved, her shoulders were small and kind of hunched over a little as she carried a big order of burgers and coffees to a silver-trimmed table. She had a tiny run in her nude-colored stockings that shot up from her ankle to the middle of her thigh. I couldn’t have stopped looking at her to save my life. Her face was all hot from running around. She kind of sighed as me and Junior pushed through the doors. We took a seat at a booth, collapsing right into the red vinyl. Charlene came right up to our table and smiled. Her lips were red and caked hard in lipstick. Maybe she had just put it on. There was a little smudge of red on her white teeth. She came right up to the table and placed some menus in our hands.

“Hello,” I mumbled.

“Hello.”

Her mouth parted a little. “The soup today is chicken noodle,” she said. It sounded like the nicest thing I ever heard someone say. “What happened to your face?” she asked.

“Ran into a doorknob.” My left eye was still pretty swollen. My missing tooth had stopped hurting a few hours after it fell out. Now the side of my tongue was cut up from fiddling around with the sharp gap between my teeth.

“Oh? Some doorknob.” She leaned the serving tray against her hip and held her breath like she had something to say, but then just shook her head and walked away to take that trucker with the red beard’s order. My face was red. I could feel heat coming off my cheeks.

She glanced over her shoulder quickly, maybe to see if I was watching her. I dropped my eyes. Maybe not in time.

Charlene leaned behind the counter on one hand, staring right at me. She blew a big pink bubble of gum. It formed slowly from her lips, then grew and popped. She picked the gum from her mouth and slid it back inside, all while staring right at me.

“What are you doing?” Junior asked. I didn’t even know I was standing.

“Making a damn fool out of myself.” I shrugged my shoulders and walked up to her. Charlene dropped her eyes and ran her finger along the counter, humming to herself.

“You ready to order?” she asked.

“No, not yet,” I answered. “Let me ask you a question. Do you like working in this place?”

Charlene shrugged her shoulders and kept looking down at my hands.

“I don’t know. It’s OK.”

“It seems pretty lousy, that’s all,” I said. Right after I said it, I realized how awful it sounded. She kind of twisted her eyebrows up and leaned back against the counter. I couldn’t smell her hair anymore over the greasy food and cigarettes. I looked over my shoulder, around to that bearded trucker with a red cap and blackened teeth. He kind of curled up his upper lip and choked down another piece of red cherry pie. “This just seems like a crummy place, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, looking away. “Did you ever eat here?”

“No … Well, once or twice.”

“Then how do you know if it’s crummy?”

I felt like I had made a mistake. I gave a little cough to it up. “That dress sure makes you look funny,” I mumbled.

“Is that so?” Her fingers smoothed over the cottony blue material, down to the pink frills. Her legs moved beneath as she shrugged her shoulders again.

“It’s just a ugly-looking color is all,” I said.

“I don’t remember ever asking you.” Her mouth was hard and small and round.

“Pink? Pink is a lousy-looking color. Especially with pale legs.” I grinned.

Charlene pushed her skirt down and kept her hands over her thighs.

“You are an asshole,” she whispered. Her eyes were bright and shiny like she was about to cry. I shrugged my shoulders and kept looking down at my hands.