The Girl from Charnelle (22 page)

“Maybe it's just me reading too much into it,” Gloria said. “Maybe he's over it. But I see him as this sad man whose wife left him.”

They both shook their heads and then sipped their coffee, but it had turned cold. Laura retrieved the pot and warmed their cups. Gloria spooned more sugar into her coffee and stirred thoughtfully.

“Where do you suppose she went?” she asked suddenly.

“I don't know,” Laura said, not prepared for this question. She felt a catch in her throat. They had been tunneling toward this question, she figured, but still it surprised her. “I don't think about it.”

That wasn't true. She thought about it a lot. But now she didn't really want to talk about it. She could feel her own sadness, rising like a water table, and she knew that before long, if they kept talking, it might spill over the edges, and then the tears would come, as they sometimes still did at night, or during the day if she was tired or disappointed or worried about something. She'd learned to watch for the signs now, and there was a line that she didn't like to cross. Gloria was greedy for details—Laura understood why she would be—but Gloria didn't live here every day, in this house. It wasn't a mausoleum. Their mother had left them, and there had been a gaping hole, and that hole had slowly closed. They'd gotten used to the fact that she had disappeared and was probably never coming back. But if her mother reentered, if they
let
her reenter the house, even in their prolonged memories, then the sadness would come again and linger like an un-tended infection. It was, Laura now understood, the unspoken threat when Gloria returned, the intrusion of these memories from the time before. The threat seemed very real now.

“Are you okay, Laura?” Gloria said, leaning toward her. “I'm sorry. This is hard for you, isn't it?”

“No,” she lied.

“You're about to cry.”

“I'm okay,” Laura said. “Before you went away, did you ever—” She broke off, choking on her words.

“Did I ever what?”

“Did you ever…think she would leave? Was there something that made it seem like it might happen?”

“I've thought about that a lot,” Gloria said, shifting the baby so that he lay across her knees. She rubbed his back gently and gave Laura's question some thought. “I think I was so focused on what I was going to do, running off with Jerome, that I honestly wasn't paying close attention. You know how she was, so quiet, you could never really read her. She had that perfect poker face. Her eyes would go to stone when she got angry, and she'd go off by herself to do the laundry or walk the dogs. I don't think I ever even
imagined that she'd
want
to leave. Who
could
imagine such a thing? It doesn't make sense. Mothers don't do that.”

Gloria stared out the window into the backyard. Fay was lying in the shade next to the storm cellar, snoozing away as she usually did most mornings and afternoons. A warm breeze blew in, slightly billowing the curtain.

“I do remember,” she said after a couple of minutes, “maybe a week before Jerome and I left for Mexico…I was convinced that she knew what I was doing. We were sitting in the backyard one evening. The sun was going down. We were just quiet together for the longest time, but it wasn't awkward. It was beautiful out. The sky was so orange, and the air seemed very warm and still. Suddenly a breeze kicked up out of nowhere. Light at first, but in just a matter of seconds it was blowing hard against our faces. Cold, too…very strange.

“I started to get up, but Momma reached over and put her hand across my chest, held me in the chair. ‘Don't leave,' she said. My heart was pounding. I thought,
Oh, no, she means don't leave Charnelle.
But then I realized that she was saying not to leave the chair. I didn't say a word…just sat there and looked at her. She had her eyes closed, and she put her hand in mine and clasped it hard. ‘I want you to remember this,' she said. ‘Just close your eyes. This moment's gone, and it's never coming back, Gloria…. Now that one. Gone, too. Now that one…. And that one. It's all going too fast. And then it's all gone.' She opened her eyes and turned to me. ‘Do you know what I'm saying?' she asked, and I said, ‘Yes, ma'am,' though I wasn't really sure at all. My heart clanged like a garbage lid, I swear. Then she squeezed my hand even tighter, so hard I could see the ends of her fingers turning white from the pressure. I tried not to wince, but I could feel my eyes tearing up. ‘Good, then,' she said. Suddenly she let go of my hand, stood up, and leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. She held that kiss for the longest time, and then she went back in the house without saying another word. I sat there, stunned, shaking. The wind was gone. And the color in the sky had faded, too. Just like that. I sat there until it got pitch-black, worrying about what she knew.”

Gloria'd been staring out the window this whole time, but now she turned to Laura.

“A week later I was outta here. But after you all finally told me that she had left, I remembered that moment, and I've been wondering if that was
when she first decided that she would go…when she would just haul off and abandon—” She broke off suddenly. “Ohhhhh, Laura, I'm so sorry.”

Gloria leaned over and touched Laura's face. Tears were streaming down Laura's cheeks.

“Maybe I shouldn't have told you that. I'm sorry. It's not necessarily good to talk about it.”

Laura tried to say something, but no words came out. Her eyes burned, and she put her face in the crook of her sister's neck and let the sobs come for a few minutes, until she could stifle them.

The baby fidgeted. Gloria wiped her own nose on the nursing diaper. Then she took the cloth and reached over and wiped Laura's eyes and nose as if she was a baby. Carroll burped again, and they both laughed.

“Enough of this,” Gloria said, rising. “Let me go put him down, and then we'll play some gin rummy and maybe go out for lunch. I have some spending cash.”

Laura got a dishcloth and finished wiping her cheeks. She remembered when her sister bought her the dress from Woolworth's just to lift her spirits. That Gloria, that sister, seemed back in the house.

 

That afternoon they strolled Gloria's kids around town, and everywhere they went, people—Sandra Sears, the Garrison sisters, Tim and Ned Stewart, the Cransburgh brothers—were calling out Gloria's name, coming over and talking to her, hugging her, pinching the baby's cheeks, rubbing Julie's head, shrieking idiotically with delight.

“Oh, my God! You look so great! How have you been?”

“My Lord, aren't these the cutest little children. That pilot of yours must be a prince.”

“It's impossible to believe that this is Gloria Tate, all grown up. Who'da thought?”

It was like walking downtown with a celebrity. Laura liked it, and she held Carroll as Gloria chatted with her friends, her old teachers, the Cransburgh brothers—Jimmy holding her a fraction of a second too long, so that Laura wondered briefly if there had been something between them. Or was it simply benign lechery? Charnelle was full of secrets. Or maybe she was reading too much into things. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be clandestine liaisons (she'd read that phrase in a bad romance novel called
Lovely Wednesdays
) or secret lives. She knew that her mother's disappearance had been one of the biggest mysteries in Charnelle and that she and Gloria and her father and brothers would always be seen through that prism.

The day was hot and dry, well over ninety degrees, and even in their sundresses they felt the sweat bead over their arms and along their hairlines, between their breasts. Inside 4-D's they gulped down large glasses of lemonade.

“No drink is ever this deliciously cold in Europe,” Gloria said, and they ordered a cheeseburger and french fries to split between them, because they were too hot to eat two meals, and then they licked away at some dripping ice cream cones. Once the lunch crowd thinned out, with all those people who kept recognizing her, Gloria nursed the baby again, a cloth diaper draped over her breast and his face, Billy Sidell sneaking some peeks every chance he got.

As they finished, in walked Mrs. Letig with Jack and Willie.

Laura spotted them first. She watched the woman, didn't say a word to Gloria, who was fiddling with the baby's shirt. She hoped Mrs. Letig would not see them. The woman was at the counter, just getting something to go, shooing her boys in behind her. She wore a thin cotton slip of a dress, pale lavender, simple but fashionable as usual. Her arms and the top of her chest were exposed; her skin was smooth and tan, her calves muscled. When she bent over to say something to Jack, there was that thickness in the middle, a couple of loose rolls, unbound by girdle. Mrs. Letig ran her hand over her stomach, pressing out the dress, self-conscious. Her red hair was pulled back wavily from her face and held by two silver fish barrettes (had John given her those?), and Laura thought this looked pretty—beautiful, even—her hair heavy and smooth. Lush. She wished she had not seen her. She wished Mrs. Letig's hair did not look so nice.

Laura said nothing. She hoped Gloria wouldn't notice Mrs. Letig or the boys—she'd baby-sat for them, too, once or twice. Laura slid over a couple of inches in the booth, closer to Julie, so that she was in the shadows, and then turned toward her niece and took a napkin to clean her face, the ice cream stained on her chin and cheeks—hoping not to be detected.
Please, please, please, just go away.

“Is that Gloria Tate?”

Gloria looked up, but Laura hesitated a fraction of a second and then
turned toward Mrs. Letig, who had her hand over her eyes, peering theatrically from the counter.

“Oh, my God, it is! I knew you were coming in, but I didn't think we'd see you until the Fourth!”

The Fourth?

“Hello,” Gloria said.

“You don't remember me, do you?”

“Mrs.—”

“Anne Letig. You baby-sat this urchin once or twice,” she said, patting Jack's head.

“Yes, of course I remember. Your husband works with my dad, doesn't he?”

“Yep. Boys, come here. Jack, do you remember Gloria?”

“No,” Jack said rudely.

He climbed into the booth next to Laura. She put her arm around him. “Hello, Jack,” she said and pointed to Gloria. “This is my sister.”

“You have a sister?” the boy asked.

“I took care of you when you were a little kid,” Gloria said.

“And this is my niece, Julie, and my nephew, Carroll.”

Willie climbed over Jack, who punched him, and into Laura's lap and hugged her.

“Willie!” Mrs. Letig said. “Get down.”

Laura strained for a laugh. “It's okay,” she said, but she wished they would leave. She felt suddenly nauseous.

“They love Laura,” Mrs. Letig said and then asked Gloria how she was, how married life was treating her, told her that her children were beautiful, asked about the infamous pilot. What was his name? Jerome, that's right. What is he now, a colonel? Ha, ha. How does the military treat you? “I always secretly dreamed of marrying an officer, being able to travel all over the world. I think an exotic life might suit me.”

Gloria laughed. “It's not as great as it sounds.”

“Well, you know what they say—the grass is always greener.”

There was an odd, wistful pause, in which they all felt uncomfortable, though it seemed to Laura for very different reasons.

“Well, I guess we'll see you on the Fourth,” Mrs. Letig said.

“What's happening on the Fourth?” Gloria asked.

“We're all going to Palo Duro Canyon for the holiday. Didn't Zeeke tell you?”

“No,” Laura said, too sharply.

“Well, you were invited. I assumed you would be coming. We hope so. John's already bought firecrackers and Roman candles and lots of sparklers for the kids. The Cransburgh brothers will be there, too.”

“We just saw Jimmy Cransburgh. He didn't say anything.”

“Well, maybe he doesn't know you all were invited. I assumed Zeeke had said yes. But maybe not. Well, you know what they say about the word ‘assume.' Makes”—here she smiled conspiratorially, one eyebrow arched—“an
ass
out of
u
and
me
.”

Gloria laughed. Willie was still in Laura's lap, hugging her and touching Julie's hair. Laura pulled his hand away.

“Maybe he forgot to tell us,” Gloria said. “They went fishing.”

“I know. John met them this morning.”

“Really?” Laura asked, though she didn't mean to say it aloud.

“Oh, yes. He's taking them to his secret spot.”

Really,
Laura thought.

Mrs. Letig noticed Willie pestering Julie. She pulled him out of the booth.

“I better be off. Hope we'll see you tomorrow. You know, you Tate girls are regular knockouts, I swear. Good genes.”

Another pocket of silence as the specter of their mother appeared.

“Well, come on, boys. Time to go. Bye now.”

After Mrs. Letig left, Gloria said, “I guess we have plans for the holiday. Hey, what's wrong?” she asked, reaching out her hand toward Laura. “Are you okay?”

Laura didn't say a word, just stared down into her plate, the last of her ice cream melting into a chocolate puddle.

T
hey left early the next morning to drive the eighty or so miles to Palo Duro Canyon. They took the truck and the Ford, which Manny was buying from their father, paying him off in monthly installments of ten dollars. They had loaded up the vehicles just after daybreak: Tupperware bowls of coleslaw, baked beans with ham hocks, potato salad, corn on the cob; heaping plates of chicken that Gloria and Laura had fried and cooled in the refrigerator; three full sides of pork ribs to barbecue; jugs of tea and lemonade, a huge block of crushed ice, and a case of Buck's Beer their father would bury, bottle by bottle, in the cool mud of the stream, so that only the brown necks and gold-starred metal caps sprouted above the waterline.

Jerome, Gloria, Julie, and Carroll rode with Manny and Joannie in the Ford. Laura had to ride with her father, Gene, and Rich in the truck, sitting in the bed of the truck with her younger brothers to keep stuff from sloshing out or toppling over.

They met the others at the Armory at seven. The Cransburgh brothers and the Letigs each had a trunkful of fireworks. John's hair was wet, so he must have just gotten out of the shower, and he wore what looked like a brand-new white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his biceps. Mrs. Letig and her boys were in the car, and they waved and smiled at Laura. She tried not to stare at John, but since he was talking to her father, it seemed okay. She kept hoping he'd look her way. Finally he walked over to the truck bed and surveyed the Tupperware bowls and jugs and big metal thermoses.

“You ready for fireworks?” he asked, flashing his toothy grin. She felt irritated. There was a condescending lilt in his voice, the way he had included her in the same sentence with Gene and Rich, as if they mattered equally to him. She knew he had to do that. He was being careful, but still it annoyed her, and when he walked back to his car and got in, she willed herself to look down. This was going to be a long day, she could tell. Her father got into the truck, started the engine, backed out, and Gene and Laura both reached out to steady everything.

“Careful!” she shouted at her father. He put his hand up, nodded his head.

They caravanned down the highway, into Amarillo, where her father stopped to pick up Aunt Velma, but she was not feeling well and decided to stay home. Gloria and her family went in and said hello to her for a few minutes, promised to visit later in the week. And then they drove on to the small town of Canyon, where the teachers college was, the land flat, flat, flat as flat could be, a hot, treeless plain of green-and-tan earth, and above them a blue sky marbled with white streaks—a stark, minimal beauty, the way the horizon stretched endlessly in every direction. And then suddenly (it always shocked her), there was the great hole of Palo Duro Canyon, starting as a small crack, then widening quickly into the gaping crevice. She'd never seen the Grand Canyon, of course, which was the only canyon in the United States bigger than this one. She knew it was much larger and deeper than Palo Duro, but it was difficult for her to imagine anything as spectacular or as large as this hole, or that it had been cut by water and time.

In science last year, she'd learned about the different layers of rock and sediment, had watched as her teacher had pointed out each geologic zone—this-zoic and that-zoic—and for a while the names had stuck with her, but now they had disappeared from her mind, which was a shame. She would have liked to mention them, to show off, to have something to contribute, but then again it didn't matter much, not today. No one really cared about
that stuff. They just liked to be down on the floor of the canyon, splashing in the creek, climbing the smaller rock formations, the more ambitious clambering up to the rim. She liked searching out the less well known spots—a curve of beautiful smooth shale that created an overhang above the creek bed, the big cave that you had to crawl around back to get into, and then smaller, secret caves that Manny and Gloria and she knew well and pretended they had discovered.

There would be lots of snacking on chips and cookies and brownies and candy—enough to sicken you if you didn't watch out—and drinking lemonade and tea, while her father, Manny, and the men, and maybe even Mrs. Letig and Gloria and Joannie, drank the beer. Swimming in the cool stream (she wore her bathing suit under her shirt and shorts), naps beneath the trees, imagining what it was like to be here, seventy, eighty, a hundred years ago, the Comanche hiding in the rocks and caves, fighting their bloody battles with the other Plains Indians and then with the Texas Rangers, until one by one the Indians were all moved out or eradicated. That was the word her history teacher, Mr. Nelson, had used. He hated what had been done to the Indians; he had all his classes read Chief Seattle's surrender and showed them photographs of great fields of skinned buffalo, their pelts taken, their bodies left to rot in the sun, though these things weren't on the Texas Board of Education's list of authorized material.

They arrived early enough to stake out the best spot, with lots of picnic tables by the creek bed and near the big cave and Sad Monkey, a large formation that supposedly looked like a chimpanzee, though no matter how many times she stared at it, she could never quite see the resemblance.

 

“You think Lyndon will catch Kennedy for the nomination, Zeeke?” Jimmy asked as he lathered up a cob of corn with some butter. “Cronkite says he'll formally announce his candidacy tomorrow.”

“I hope, but it doesn't look like he can catch him. Seems a shame that he's waited until a week before the convention to officially throw his hat in the ring.”

Mr. Tate was standing by the picnic table, drinking a bottle of Buck's Beer that he'd just pulled from the cool mud. John was playing horseshoes within earshot with Gene, Rich, Jack, and Willie. Manny and Joannie took Julie down by the water. Mrs. Letig, the Cransburgh brothers, Gloria,
Laura, and Jerome stood and sat around the picnic table with Mr. Tate. The baby was nearby, asleep on a blanket under the shade of a cottonwood tree.

“It would be quite a ticket if they were both on it,” Bob said. He was brushing barbecue sauce on the ribs.

“It would give old Dick Nixon a run for his money,” Jimmy said. “That's for sure.”

Mrs. Letig leaned over the table and grabbed a leg of chicken. “There's no way Johnson would be on the same ticket with Kennedy,” she offered. “At least not as vice president.”

“That's what they all say,” Mr. Tate scoffed. “Second fiddle ain't all that bad.”

Bob said, “But he's got much more clout as Majority Leader.”

“Trust me. Vice prez is tempting enough, even if it's a shitty job. But don't listen to me. Ask Gloria. She's the political expert here. How's Kennedy's tan, sweetheart?”

Gloria, wearing jeans and her bathing suit top, which barely seemed to contain her, said, “Better than Lyndon's, that's for damn sure.”

“I don't know,” he said. “Johnson's got a good tan.”

“But it doesn't look as good on a rhino,” Gloria said. They all laughed.

“You're talking about our senator, honey.”

“I didn't think we were talking politics, Daddy. I thought we were talking about sexual charisma.”

Jimmy laughed so hard that he nearly choked on his corncob. He leaned over to Jerome. Slapping him on his back, he said, “You let her get away with that, Jerry?”

“Jerome.”

“You let her get away with that?”

“As long as she knows who butters her bread.”

“You hear that, Zeeke? Your son-in-law's talking about buttering your daughter's bread.”

“She's his wife. He can butter whatever he wants.”

“Oh, my Lord!” crooned Mrs. Letig, mocking. “When did you become such a libertine, Zeeke?”

“What the hell is that?”

“It's a liberal that likes his bread buttered,” she said.

Jimmy laughed again and began to sputter corn kernels over the table, and Mrs. Letig slapped
his
back a couple of times to unclog him.

“You leave Dad alone,” Gloria said. “He'll come around to Kennedy soon enough.”

“Sounds like you got a crush on that Massachusetts boy,” said Bob.

“Hell, she just says that,” Jerome said. “She'll come around to Nixon in the end.”

“The
hell
I will!”

Her father turned to Jerome, his face a stone. Everybody was suddenly quiet. “Don't tell me that
you're
voting for Nixon.”

Jerome took a swig from his beer and leaned back against the table. “I don't trust Kennedy.”

“He served in the military.”

“The navy,” Jerome said, smiling. “That's not the same thing.”

Everybody laughed nervously. Bob said, “Nixon was a navy man, too, you know.”

“And Kennedy was a hero,” Mr. Tate said, his voice rising. “A hell of a lot more of a hero than Nixon ever was.”

“But Nixon knows the world better than Kennedy or Johnson ever will.”

“Were you born in Texas, boy?” Bob asked, pointing the long barbecue fork at him.

“Wichita Falls.”

Jimmy laughed. “I thought that counted, but maybe not.”

“Are you
really
voting for Nixon?” Mr. Tate asked, leaning down.

“I'm voting for Ike's vice president.”

“Oh, leave him alone, Dad,” Gloria said, putting her arms around Jerome's neck. “They're all voting for Nixon over there. Most of them served under Eisenhower in the war. Or their fathers did.”

“We're not talking Ike. Ike just flipped a coin to figure out whether he was going to be a Democrat or Republican. But
Nixon
! Nixon's a mean little bastard. We're talking about the next president of the United States, you know.”

“Sorry, Mr. Tate,” Jerome said. “She warned me not to talk politics with you. Said you were a dyed-in-the-wool New Dealer.”

“Damn straight!”

“It's okay, Daddy,” Gloria said, putting her hands over Jerome's ears. “I'm still a true believer.”

“Hell, I was pissed off when you eloped. If I'da known he was a Republican, I would've chased you all the way to Europe.”

Everybody laughed again.

“Enough politics!” Mrs. Letig said. “Let's go back to talking about Kennedy's tan.” She winked at Gloria and Laura. “I'm with you, Zeeke, but no roughing up the father of your grandchildren today.”

“Jesus, it's Independence Day. If you can't fight about politics on the Fourth, when can you fight about it?”

“Well, you do whatever you want,” Mrs. Letig said. “I'm hot, and I'm going to wade in that water, close my eyes, and think of the Massachusetts senator playing football.”

“You hear that, John?” Jimmy shouted.

“She knows who butters her bread,” John called, and everybody at the table cackled. Laura put her head down and clenched her teeth. The baby woke, and she used that as an excuse to rise. She picked him up, but he was fussy, so she handed him to Gloria, who quickly calmed him down.

“
Nixon,
for Christ's sake!”

Mr. Tate was hot now. Despite all the joking, Laura could see him starting to seethe. He hated Nixon, would yell at the screen whenever he came on: “You idiot! Idiot!” He was sure that Nixon would get creamed in the election, especially if Lyndon Johnson was running against him. Even Ike had disowned Nixon, barely kept him on the ticket in 1956. When Ike was asked what Nixon had done as vice president, Ike had said, right there on national television, “If you give me a week, maybe I could think of something.” Her father had shouted in triumph that day, kept repeating Ike's words to whoever would listen. But now that it looked like “the Catholic rich boy and his debutante wife” (her father's words) would be nominated and alienate the Protestant and the southern votes, her father was edgier, more easily ignited. She felt an undercurrent of fear, watching him and Jerome square off. Hadn't Gloria warned Jerome better? Had she forgotten how riled up their father could get about politics? She was around when Adlai Stevenson had been beaten in '56; surely she remembered how angry and depressed he was then.

“Did you see him the other day?” her father said. “Nixon spent thirty minutes talking about all the places he'd gone and people he'd seen, as if that grocery list was some kind of badge of honor.”

“It
does
count for something,” Jerome said. “He's been to fifty-six countries, and he did whip Khrushchev in the kitchen debate.”

“Okay,” Gloria said, “that
is
enough. I'm going swimming. You two
can stay here and fight all you want.” She reached up and kissed her father on the cheek and handed him Carroll. “While you're sputtering at each other, why don't you smash this banana up and feed him, Grandpa.”

And just like that, the tension was defused. Bob pulled a football out from under the table and threw it to Jerome. Laura watched her father sitting there, no one to argue with, his grandson in his arms. Her father frowned at his lost audience. He seemed comical and sad, but then he raised the baby in his arms and Carroll laughed, a string of spittle landing on her father's nose. He shook his head in surprise and then turned to Laura, and she wondered what he would do.

“Look what I get for my troubles!” he cackled loudly, from his belly.

She smiled, too, happy all of a sudden.

 

The flies swarmed around the picnic tables. Laura swished the air with her hands while she prepared her plate: a chicken leg, a scoop of potato salad, a cob of corn, and some cherry cobbler that Mrs. Letig had made and which Laura, despite herself, had to admit was delicious. She had skipped breakfast, so she was starving, and she ate fast, guzzling down two tall glasses of sweet tea, finishing off another chicken leg and a second helping of potato salad (which she had made herself last night—extra spicy with three dashes of cayenne), before toothpicking the corn kernels from her teeth. Mrs. Letig stood nearby, nibbling at her food—watching her weight, no doubt—and Laura felt secretly pleased that she, by contrast, could eat so much and remain skinny.
Good genes
. After she ate, she stripped off her shirt and shorts in front of Mrs. Letig and waded into the creek with Gene, Rich, and the Letig boys.