I Cannot Get You Close Enough (36 page)

“Oh, my darling, darling child,” Miss Crystal kept saying, as if Jessie had handed her a million dollars instead of a problem to be solved.

On the positive side, it was this development that clinched the make-up between Miss Crystal and Mr. Manny. If there is one thing she will always die for it is King. Miss Lydia got drunk later and explained it to me and for once I think she was completely right. “That's it,” Lydia said. “Now she'll never leave him. Now she has a whole new set of things for him to solve, money for him to spend. Can you believe it, Traceleen? How people use and drain each other. It drives me nuts. It makes me glad I live alone.”

“I want them to love each other,” I said. “I want them to make up.”

“That isn't making up,” Lydia said. “That's using people. She doesn't love him. She doesn't have the hots for him. She never did. She lives with him and spends his money and takes his goodness and his love and in return she despises him.”

“Miss Crystal does not despise Mr. Manny.”

“Not in the way you mean. Not like you would a criminal. She hates him for what he cannot be. He can't be Big King or Daniel or that football hero she went out with. He's a quiet Jewish intellectual who's a momma's boy. He's an angel and you can't fuck angels no matter how much you like them or think they're wonderful. So now they all go back to New Orleans and she collects a few more lovers and maybe goes back to drinking and he goes back to work and King and Jessie have this baby they don't need and Crystal Anne grows up to do God knows what.”

“Nothing will ever happen to her,” I said. “She is a blessed child. She will always be a happy person and give happiness to other people. No sadness could destroy her.”

“I hope you're right,” Miss Lydia said. She poured a glass of gin and drank it off and then she poured another. “Goddammit, these people drive me crazy. They drive me nuts.”

“It's not as bad as you think,” I said. “Maybe they can go to a counselor. Maybe they can leam to have a stronger love.”

“Oh, Traceleen,” Miss Lydia goes. “Oh, God, you are so wonderful, and I'll tell you something else.” She polished off her drink and leaned across the table at me. “If Crystal Anne's an angel it's because of you. You have done that to her. You have made her safe.”

I prayed that night to save me from the sin of pride. I prayed not to want to believe that it was true.

12

TRACELEEN Olivia and Andria had a fit when they found out about Jessie. They did nothing to hide their disgust. “It doesn't surprise me,” Andria said. “She does everything he wants her to. She's his slave.”

“Women are always men's slaves,” Olivia put in. “They want to keep women down. They know we're smarter than they are. Barefoot and pregnant, that's all they want. Well, it's not King's fault. King isn't bad. He can't help it if he's a man.”

“No one will ever knock me up.” Andria was preparing their diet breakfast, half a grapefruit and an egg.

“Me either,” Olivia agreed. “And if they do I'll get an abortion. I begged her last night to get one. She won't listen to me.”

“I know,” Andria said. “She wants it. She's going to have it. Can you imagine that.”

“Dad's going to kill her. Or he'll kill King. I guess he'll kill King. I hope I'm not there when they tell him.” This from Olivia. I was taking a pan of applesauce muffins out of the oven. I put the pan down on the table to cool.

“Oh, God, her father,” Andria said. “I'd forgotten about him.” Andria picked up a muffin and started eating it, blowing on the pieces as she stuffed them in her mouth. “In this play we saw in Montgomery the king gives this girl the choice of marrying the guy he picks out or going to a nunnery. Or getting killed, that was the third choice. It's just like now. Either you don't do it or you end up as good as dead. This guy at school tried to kill a girl he was screwing because she got an abortion. You can keep all this pussy business as far as I'm concerned.”

“Andria,” I yelled. I can't bear to hear her talk like that, so common.

“Andria,” Olivia yelled. She ran over to her and grabbed the muffin. “Don't eat it. Spit it out. Ten seconds in the mouth. Twenty years on the hips.”

Andria ran to the sink and spit out my lovely muffin made with handmade applesauce from apples we picked in the yard. I decided to leave the kitchen. It was too early to be with young people. I started taking off my apron, then they both apologized and settled down. They sat down at the table and began to eat their grapefruit, talking in lower tones.

“My best friend at NOCCA got knocked up last year,” Andria said. “Now she's just pitiful. She brings the baby over to see us at school. It's this pitiful little baby. It cries all the time. The guy left her as soon as the baby came. He couldn't stand to hear it cry. Now she doesn't know if she'll ever get back in school.”

“What have you said to Jessie?” I asked.

“I told her she didn't have to have a baby if she doesn't want to,” Olivia answered. “But she won't even talk about it. She says she's glad. And then she started crying. I guess she's mad at me.”

“That's not like you to say mean things to someone,” I said. “King in the hospital and her father in North Carolina and her mother in Europe. You're the only one she has, Olivia. You better go find her and try again.”

“I didn't say anything mean. I told her she could count on me if she wants to get rid of it. I know how to find out where to go.”

“He only had his appendix out,” Andria added. “He'll be home in a couple of days.”

Then Jessie appeared in the door, dressed in a light-colored summer dress, ready to go visit the hospital. She didn't look like anything was wrong with her. She sort of floated into the kitchen and sat down beside Olivia and touched her arm. Above the table was a stained-glass picture of Spring as a young girl. It was hanging in the window above the table and the beautiful colored light fell down upon the girls. Andria and Olivia were like a dark sea with Jessie floating above them in the light.

“You feeling okay?” Olivia asked.

“I'm all right. I'm going to see King. Crystal's taking me.”

“What did she say?” Andria asked.

“She's happy. She's really happy. She's glad.”

“You don't have to have this baby,” Olivia said. “It's only a fetus. It's only an eighth of an inch long or even smaller than a bug. It's nothing. You don't have to do this. This is what happened to our mothers. It's nineteen eighty-eight. You don't have to let this happen. It's a trap.”

“It isn't a trap.”

“It is a trap.”

“This friend of mine from NOCCA got knocked up last year.” This from Andria. “And it ruined her life. You can get you a baby later on. It's too soon when you just got out of high school.”

“I know,” she said.

“Know what?” Olivia asked. “That it's a trap?”

“No, that what you say is true but it's not about King and me. We love each other. We want this baby. You don't understand, Olivia.” She picked at the muffin I handed her. Andria got up and got a glass and poured her some orange juice. “You ought to drink this, especially after you had the flu. There might be something wrong with it anyway, since you were so sick with the flu. You ought to check on that.”

“I don't care, there's nothing wrong with me, or my baby. I'm pregnant and I'm glad I am. As soon as King comes home we'll tell Dad. Dad won't kill anyone, Olivia. Dad loves me. He loves you and me.” She drank her orange juice. I was surprised at how strong she seemed. How strong life is when it wishes to be. She floated above the sea of Olivia and Andria.

“Well, I'd better go,” Jessie said, and polished off her muffin. “What time is it now?”

“Eight-fifteen.”

“I have to see if Crystal's ready.”

“Why don't you drive yourself,” Olivia said. “You can still drive a car, can't you?”

“Crystal wants to take me.”

“You don't have to do this,” Olivia said. “I'm not going to stop saying that.”

“Then say it all you want. It won't change my mind.” Then Miss Crystal appeared and Crystal Anne and the three of them went off to visit the hospital.

“It will never happen to me,” Andria said, getting up to put the plates and glasses in the dishwasher. “I'd abort myself in the tub. I'd have an abortion on my way to school. She'll be so sorry.”

“Think about me,” Olivia added, leaning on the counter to watch Andria work. “Think what it's like to watch your own sister go nuts. I mean, I have to watch her do this.” She took her fist and began to bang it on the wall beside the broom closet. Bang, bang, bang. Like an actress in a play. Bang, bang, bang.

“Don't hurt your hand,” I said. “That won't do a bit of good.”

The next day they brought King home. He came limping up on the porch, bent over, but fine. As soon as he got there we all went into the living room and had a meeting.

“We have to tell her dad,” King said. “I was going to go down there but now I can't travel. We are going to get married, Mother.”

“Of course you are. How about here, in this room? This would be a beautiful place for a wedding.”

“When?” This from Jessie. “When can we do it?”

“We have to tell your father first,” Crystal said. “And we have to talk to the minister. There's an Episcopal church in town or do you want a priest?”

“A minister will do,” Jessie said. “If it's okay with King.”

“Are you sure you want to have a baby?” Miss Lydia got up from her chair and began to pace around. “There are hundreds of eggs in there. Plenty of sperm. You sure you want to hatch this one? What will you do about school?”

All our faces turned her way. She must have felt very lonesome at that moment and wished she had some of her Seattle friends with her.

“We want it,” King said. “It's ours.”

13

LYDIA I did not stop trying. I am a civilized person and I know my duty when I see it. It is not my job to be popular. It's my job to help the forward progress of civilization, and at this point in history that means the progress of women. A civilization that corrupts or enslaves or weakens its women
in any way
weakens itself and eventually will fall. So I kept on trying.

“How can she be a mother?” I screamed at Crystal. It was after they called Daniel and he had a fit and started flying to Maine in a twin-engine Cessna he's had for twenty years. “She doesn't even have a mother. She doesn't even have herself.”

“She has us. All of us. I'll take care of them.”

“She's a beautiful young girl at the beginning of her life. She doesn't even know who she is yet. And King certainly doesn't know who he is. Are you going to sacrifice them for the sake of some baby you think will do it for you? That's it? King wouldn't do it for you so you think this baby's going to?”

“It might grow them up.”

“Did it grow you up? Hell, no. Did it grow Helen up to be a breed mare? Hell, no. Look what happened when she cut loose. It's a new world, Crystal. New possibilities. We live longer. Everything takes longer. Babies don't die. There doesn't have to be an unending supply at the cost of the mothers' lives, their freedom. Well, goddammit, freedom is worth something. It's priceless. It's beyond price. Just because you traded yours in for Manny's money.”

“I don't believe you said that to me. It's over between us, Lydia. That's the last straw.”

“No, it isn't. It's true. You've said it to me. I'm just saying it back. So, instead of taking your freedom you will go back to Manny and make up with him and get him to invest fifty thousand dollars in King's and Jessie's education? Well, he's probably pussy enough to do it. He hates being a Jew so much he'll do anything to get to run around with your cousins and brothers. It's pitiful. I don't know how I got mixed up with all of you. I'm going back to Seattle.”

“Go on then. I don't care.”

“You don't care about the truth anymore?”

“The truth doesn't do me any good. The truth doesn't keep my kids alive. The world is scary, Lydia. Young people have to have something to hang on to. They have to have love. They have to have each other.”

“They don't have to have a baby for the glue. It's terrible for those children to have a child. My God, Crystal, have you recanted on everything we knew? It's terrible of you to encourage this.”

“What do you suggest? Let her abort it and then she and King would hate each other for the rest of their lives? They might never find each other again. They're made for each other.”

“They might find themselves.”

She was quiet then. She wasn't even mad anymore. “I know,” she said. “That's the choice, isn't it? But I can't take a chance. He's my son. I have to make sure he has a reason to live.”

“Then what about Jessie? You sacrifice her to that?”

“If I have to.”

“When is Daniel getting here?”

“I don't know. He's flying in. He's furious.”

“I know.”

“Don't do anything to make him madder, please.”

“Like what?”

“Like say those things to him.”

Jessie appeared at the door. She was wearing a little beige linen sundress and sandals. So beautiful. So unearthly beautiful. Anyone would want their son to breed with her. “Dad called,” she said. “He's at the airport in Tennant's Harbor. A guy is bringing him here. He'll be here in a minute.”

“Get King,” Crystal said. “Let's meet him on the porch.”

He came tearing up the driveway. He was driving some man's car and when they came to the stairs he got out and handed the man some money. It was Daniel rampant.